What Are You Reading / Reviews - March 2017

[Book Concierge]

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Read any good books lately? We want to know about them.

Enter your reading list and/or reviews here. Did you like it? Hate it? Feel lukewarm? Share your thoughts with us.

Happy reading!

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[Leah]

Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich
240 pages

★★★ ½

Can a person live on minimum wage? Can a family? Well if you’ve ever really tried, while taking care of the basics (shelter, utilities, food, etc) let alone things such as medical emergencies, vehicle, savings, occasional entertainment – the answer is…no, not really. In this book, Barbara goes to three different states, gets minimum wage jobs and sees if it’s possible to survive off minimum wage, the subtitle – On (Not) Getting By in America – is your answer. This book may be coming up on twenty years old but the answer hasn’t changed there. Which of course raises the question of, what if anything, can anything be done about it?

This was an interesting read but not at all that surprising. My family is what you would consider lower-middle class. We have a fairly nice apartment roof over our head (but cannot afford the start-up cost of getting a house), we have food in our bellies (and if the roundness of my belly is any indication, plenty of food at that), and we can pay our bills and massive insurance and the entertainment attached (occasional going out to dinner, cable, Netflix, etc), we can care for our child (although the expense of daycare is out of the question). That wasn’t always the case. In 2013 we were barely getting by on a just-above minimum wage job when we lost our son and shortly followed by my father and my husband’s uncle and which point my husband was told at his job that “he was no longer needed” – medical bills, utility bills, rental bills piled up. Threats of electricity and water being turned off and being kicked out of our shelter were in the work. We questioned where food would come from next and essentially were |-| this close to being homeless. I picked up a minimum wage job as my husband continued to look for a job (that would take 7 months) and it covered a minor bill here or there. It was only with the help of amazing friends and family who raised over $4000 for us that we once again were able to keep a roof over our head, food in our bellies and to cover those super late bills so we could at least keep the basics. So what’s my point? I’ve been in poverty, even with unemployment and a minimum wage job (which btw, also put us..ready for this…$2 over the limit to qualify for food stamps or most government help), it was rough going. I can’t imagine doing it all the time or with a family (it was just my husband and I after our son passed, our second son was born the following year when we were slightly back on our feet) and even pulling one.

I think the author does the best she can to experience what it’s like to be truly poor, she gets the cheapest places she can even if it’s a terrible place and often works several minimum wage jobs at once just to make those ends meet and it is an interesting study. But in the end of the day, it’s still only a small glimpse at the lives of those living in terrible poverty. At the end of the day, or month, this author knew she would be going back to her comfortable way of life. She knew that if she hit a hard time she had the medical insurance and the backup savings – something many in poverty lack. She knew she could give up if it got to hard and she had the advantage of start-up money in starting the project. That’s not really how life works, we can only wish. She tried and it was fascinating but hard to take seriously at times. Plus, she had this habit of fairly frequently bringing up that she had a Ph.D. and makes good money. Yes, we get it, you’re well educated and I’m sure the people who you were working with while undercover wouldn’t have given one iota on your education. I think the author does care for the situation the poverty-stricken are in. I think she gets the small taste of working day in and day out, every day of the year. I think she tried but at times I get a sense she feels she is somewhat above these people based on her bragging. I ate up this book and it was eye-opening in places but missed the point in others. I go back and forth on a 3 or 4 star rating on this one so I’ll go with the middle ground of 3.5 stars.

[ilikeboox]

I just read " . It's pretty funny.

It was written in the 80s and looked familiar so I plucked it off the library shelf to see what it was about. Someone told me it's a bit of a cult classic.

[James]

Claude McKay, Amiable with Big Teeth: A Novel of the Love Affair Between the Communists and the Poor Black Sheep of Harlem [written ca. 1941, pub. 2017] 302 pages

After all the hoopla about Harper Lee's Go Set a Watchman, an uncorrected first draft which was rejected and never worked on again, it is amazing that the rediscovery of this completed and edited novel by a leading Black writer, which had been accepted for publication by Dutton in 1941 and then mysteriously was never published, has not made any splash at all. If I had not been specifically looking for books by McKay, I would never have even known it existed.

The novel is a satire, dealing in an exaggerated way with the movement in Harlem in support of Ethiopia against Mussolini's invasion in the mid-thirties, which was one of the first important Black political movements since the betrayal of Reconstruction. As the subtitle suggests, it is especially concerned with the activities of the Stalinists in subverting the independent movement and trying to subordinate it to the politics of the "Popular Front". The book is fiction; events do not exactly correspond to history, and the characters seem to have been constructed out of various different historical persons. For an author who is not himself a communist, it can be difficult to criticize Stalinism without falling into anti-communism, and McKay sometimes crosses the boundary. However, unlike the usual anti-communist author, he does not present the Stalinists as fanatical revolutionists, but more accurately as bureaucrats who are seeking to subordinate independent movements to alliances with liberals.

The novel opens with a mass meeting to greet the arrival of an Ethiopian envoy, Lij Alamaya, in which we are introduced to most of the major characters. The second chapter moves to a meeting of the executive committee of Hands for Ethiopia, an independent Black organization which organized the meeting, at the home of its chairman, Pablo Peixote. The meeting devolves into a debate over the role of the Soviet Union in the struggle against Fascism, with the Secretary, Newton Castle, insisting that Russia is the only hope of the world against Fascism, while another member, Dorsey Flagg, is critical of Stalin's policies. Castle then denounces Flagg as a Trotskyite Fascist agent and demands that he be expelled from the movement, which the rest of the committee refuses to do. Later we find out about another group, the White Friends of Ethiopia, controlled (unofficially) by Maxim Tasan, a representative apparently of the Comintern. Castle is in with this group, and favors uniting the two organizations under the umbrella of the Popular Front, while Peixote and the others feel that if they merge with the white group the whites will take over the leadership as usually happened in "integrated" groups at that time. The novel then follows the machinations of the various characters, some consciously, others being maneuvered without understanding what is going on. There are also some other subplots, a couple of love stories, etc. but they are all connected in some way to the political theme.

In addition to the material on the movement for Ethiopia, and the politics of the Popular Front, there is a lot of discussion of race and class relations in general and the way forward for the Blacks. Everything is in character, but it is fairly obvious which positions McKay takes, and most of his ideas have been borne out by later experience. At the very least, the questions are taken up and discussed seriously, despite the comic attributes of some of the plot.

[Beverly]

English Tea Murder by Leslie Meier
3 stars

This was an interesting addition to this mystery series. Lucy has decided it's time for a vacation, so when she has a chance to go to England with several of her friends and a tour group from the local collage, she jumps at it. Unfortunately, people seem to drop like flies around Lucy and this story is no exception. The tour leader dies en route supposedly from a severe attack of asthma. Once on solid ground again, between shopping, sight seeing and attempting to have a real cup of tea, Lucy attempts to figure out what really killed the professor. This was not one of my favorites of the series because I had a difficult time believing the solution. It was a fun, quick read and it was entertaining, just a little "out there".

[Beverly]

The Shack by Wm. Paul Young
4 stars

I enjoyed reading this book in spite of it being just a bit "preachy". It's not that I don't agree with what's presented in these pages, it just seems a little...I don't know, easy maybe. The youngest daughter of a fairly tight family is taken from their campsite and although they never find the body, it's evident that she was murdered. Mack, her father, was distracted by an emergency which enabled the guy to grab Missy. Mack is overcome by The Great Sadness and his older daughter (who was involved in the emergency situation) withdraws from the other family members. One day, Mack gets a note in his mailbox that says he's been missed at the shack--where the evidence of the murder was discovered--and he should come there. The note was signed by Papa--his wife's name for God. Mack is not quite sure what to do but finally decides to go. The outcome is far beyond anything that he expects and it apparently changes his life forever. The book is certainly spiritually uplifting and I kept thinking...if it could only be this simple. But, the lessons are good ones and I believe that it could be healing for some who are suffering a personal loss. I want to see the movie to see what I think of them both (book and movie together).

[Beverly]

Animals by the Numbers by Steve Jenkins
3 stars

Reviewed for Mock Caldecott Awards--still trying to finish up the ones I should have reviewed in January. This book would be best for an older child who is showing a real interest in numbers and the animal world. The illustrations are well done and the charts are colorful but there is not a real story. A couple of the interesting facts that I learned was the biomass of all the humans in the world is about 300 million tons while the biomass of all insects is 100 billion tons. Also, that the mosquito is the deadliest animal in the world--causing 1,000,000 deaths a year. Very interesting, just not for little ones.

[Paige]

We Were The Lucky Ones by Georgia Hunter
5Stars
Well written account of the author's Polish/Jewish family during WWII. Very difficult to read at times due to the descriptions of the immense sufferings of the Polish/Jewish people, yet so important to read. A lesson in how humans are capable of the widest range of behaviors from senseless torture and murder to surrendering everything to protect and save a loved one.

[Beverly]

Best in Snow by April Pulley Sayre
3 stars

Reviewed for Mock Caldecott Awards--still trying to finish up the ones I should have reviewed in January. Beautiful photos of winter--animals and foliage in the snow and ice.

[Beverly]

Du Iz Tak? by Carson Ellis
4 stars

Reviewed for Mock Caldecott Awards--still trying to finish up the ones I should have reviewed in January. Adorable illustrations of a group of insects who speak in a charming made up language (unless of course, it's insect and I just don't speak it). It starts out with a small group who are watching a plant begin to grow but the bigger the plant gets, the more insect friends join in and begin building a plant fort. A great picture book to help explain cooperation in such a cute way.

[Beverly]

The Bossier Baby by Marla Frazee
3 stars

Reviewed for Mock Caldecott Awards--still trying to finish up the ones I should have reviewed in January. The illustrations in this book are cute and the story would be cute if it just didn't remind me so much of the movie The Boss Baby. For someone who could get past that, I could see that it might be a good book to read to a child who will soon be gaining a younger sibling.

[Beverly]

The Cat From Hunger Mountain by Ed Young
4 stars

Reviewed for Mock Caldecott Awards--still trying to finish up the ones I should have reviewed in January. This was a lovely book where the illustrations are made of mixed media collage. I felt like you really had to concentrate on the pages or you would lose the image because some of the angles were odd and the colors are bright. However, over all, the book is beautiful and inventive. The point of the tale is that one man's waste (trash) is another man's treasure.

[Beverly]

Me Before You by Jojo Moyes
4 stars

Here's another one of those books that I feel like I'm the last person in the world who has read it...probably not but that's how it feels. Anyway, I had seen the movie either 2 or 3 times and was really taken with it and was afraid that reading the book would be anticlimactic. Luckily it was not. This is one of the few books that translated to a movie almost seamlessly. Much of the dialogue was basically lifted from the book. I can actually only think of 2 situations in the book that were unaddressed in the movie and they are both inconsequential. A sad but lovely story of a young woman. Lu Clark, who is trying to help support her family and takes a job caring for a young man, Will, who is a quadriplegic. His life before the accident had been full of physically challenging adventures and social contacts. Unable to accept anything less, he has contracted a 6 month reprieve with his mother before he commits assisted suicide. When Lu discovers the arrangement, she does everything in her power to convince Will that he should accept his situation and stay in this world. So even with having seen the movie multiple times, I still cried at the end of the book. It's a great read.

[Book Concierge]

Under the Wide and Starry Sky – Nancy Horan – 2.5**
This work of historical fiction tells the story of the relationship of Fanny Van de Grift Osbourne and Robert Louis Stevenson. Once again Horan turns her attentions to a man who was difficult to live with, and a woman who was conflicted about her life with that man. It should have been interesting, but this book somehow failed to capture me. The best part was their lives in Samoa, only about 100 pages in a nearly 500-page book.
LINK to my review

[Book Concierge]

Beverly wrote: "
Me Before You by Jojo Moyes
4 stars

Here's another one of those books that I feel like I'm the last person in the world who has read it...probably not but that's..."

I was surprised how much I liked this book....

[James]

Alphonse de Lamartine, Graziella [1849] 119 pages [in French]

I got a little bit further in my French literature project. Lamartine's Meditations of 1820, which I read earlier, and his Graziella and Raphael of 1849, bracket the Romantic period in French literature. The later two (I will be reading Raphael next) were originally published as parts of his "autobiography", Les Confidances, although it is questionable how closely they follow his actual experiences -- while he did know a Graziella (not a fisherman's daughter, but a worker in a cigar factory) who later died young, it is not clear how much he actually had to do with her or whether they were ever in love with each other. The fact is, the novella is pure Romanticism, modelled after other books such as Paul et Virginie (which he reads to Graziella here) and so many others of the same type; the pure, innocent, "natural" first love who died young is a trope of that sort of literature. I can't say that I particularly enjoy this kind of novel, or the Romantic ideology that underlies it -- the ideal of the naive, uneducated, piously religious girl who falls totally in love with the more sophisticated young man and just dies when they are separated; basically just a male ego trip, whether it happened or he just made it up for the sake of "poetry".

[Leah]

Books for Living by Will Schwalbe
257 pages

★★★ ½

This book (from the same author as The End of Your Life Book Club) focuses on Will Schwalbe, his love for reading, the books that have made a difference in his life, and his association with certain books. In essence it’s a book about books.

In the last few pages of Books for Living these is a quote that struck me:
“Books speak to us thoughtfully, one at a time. They demand our attention. And they demand that we briefly put aside our own beliefs and prejudices and listen to someone else's. There's one questions I think we should ask one another a lot more often, and that's "what are you reading?”

My father was never a big reader. I can remember him picking up a book here and there throughout my life, most left unfinished. He did recommend a book once in a while, such as Watership Down, but that was about it. He was a computer engineer and spent his free time watching tv and doing laundry, books just weren’t his thing. But one thing he always would ask until days before he passed away (which will be 4 years this month) was “What are you reading? Tell me about it.” And it was something that meant so much to me, he was taking an interest in my passion and it was a focal point of many of our conversations. So that line alone in the book stuck with me.

Overall, it was a decent book. It was a mix between a memoir and book reviews. The author brought up several books I hadn’t read or even heard of…which only meant he has added to my TBR list. The author was very sincere with his thoughts and seeing how some of these books had such a connection to his life was beautiful. I guess my main complaint comes from the author’s love of one book in particular. He brings up the book ALL the time which I get, it impacted his life. But at times he’d bring up a book that meant something to him, bring it up for a couple paragraphs then spend the next 5 pages discussing how his favorite book connected to it all. It ended up feeling more like an ode to one book instead of many different books at times. But it did grab my attention and overall enjoyable. If you enjoyed Schwalbe’s first book, The End of Your Life Book Club, this one is probably also up your alley.

[Melissa]

Revival by Stephen King
4 ★

A dark and electrifying novel about addiction, fanaticism, and what might exist on the other side of life.
In a small New England town, over half a century ago, a shadow falls over a small boy playing with his toy soldiers. Jamie Morton looks up to see a striking man, the new minister. Charles Jacobs, along with his beautiful wife, will transform the local church. The men and boys are all a bit in love with Mrs. Jacobs; the women and girls feel the same about Reverend Jacobs; including Jamie's mother and beloved sister, Claire. With Jamie, the Reverend shares a deeper bond based on a secret obsession. When tragedy strikes the Jacobs family, this charismatic preacher curses God, mocks all religious belief, and is banished from the shocked town.
Jamie has demons of his own. Wed to his guitar from the age of thirteen, he plays in bands across the country, living the nomadic lifestyle of bar-band rock and roll while fleeing from his family's horrific loss. In his mid-thirties, addicted to heroin, stranded, desperate, Jamie meets Charles Jacobs again, with profound consequences for both men. Their bond becomes a pact beyond even the Devil's devising, and Jamie discovers that revival has many meanings.

This rich and disturbing novel spans five decades on its way to the most terrifying conclusion Stephen King has ever written. It's a masterpiece from King, in the great American tradition of Frank Norris, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Edgar Allan Poe.

My Thoughts
Stephen King never disappoints me. This novel spans many years and tells the whole story of Jamie Morton and Reverend Charles Jacobs. The reverend has many name changes throughout and Jamie goes through some pretty hard times. The story is very intriguing and keeps you reading. The whole electricity angle was very interesting. The author describes things so well that I found myself learning quite a bit about lightening, electricity and music. The story seems to move slow, but you know that it is leading up to something big, so you keep on reading. You will not be disappointed.

[James]

Mar. 9

[abandoned] Kelli Estes, The Girl Who Wrote in Silk [2015] finished 174 of 390 pages

This novel, which was the book for the Utah State Library book discussion this month, is a historical novel about the forced evacuation and massacre of the Chinese population of Seattle, Washington in 1886. There is only one small problem -- it never happened. One of the blurbs on the back cover says the book was "inspired by true events", and in fact a mob did attempt to force out the Chinese, but as the "Author's note" admits, the Territorial Governor -- in what must have been an unusual act of courage for that time and place -- suppressed the riots and protected the rights of the Chinese to remain in the city. There was no massacre, and only one Chinese person was killed. The entire story (pun intended) was fabricated out of whole cloth. Certainly the anti-immigrant hysteria of the time, and the Chinese Exclusion Act (like the present exclusion of Moslem immigration, except that back then laws were made by Congress and not Executive Order) would be an important subject for a good historical novel, but the last thing I want to read now is "fake history." Once I read the "Author's note", I lost interest in the book.

The structure of the novel is similar to Sarah's Key, which the USL discussion read a couple years ago; the "historical" chapters alternate with the story of a modern-day woman who is investigating the events because of a family connection. As in that book, the present day chapters are designed to relieve the tension, and are much less interesting. The story begins to flag in the middle, about the point at which I abandoned the book. Everything has been revealed (in this book, the "facts" are presented before the investigator finds them out, which lessens the interest of that part of the story even more.) About all that's left for the second half of the novel is apparently the question whether the spoiled rich Daddy's girl will get to build her "boutique hotel" and whether her romance will work out. The author of this first novel is a member of the Romance Writers of America, which indicates the style of the book.

[Dan]

Lamb : The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal

This book is funny in a sarcastic kind of way. I don't recommend it to anyone who is devout and of the Judeo/Christian tradition because you will likely find it offensive but if you are not bothered by a rye / sarcastic take on the story of Jesus you may find it very very entertaining. Officially its categorized as a Fantasy/Comedy which actually describes it very well.

The whole story centers on the writing of a new Gospel for the bible by a guy named Biff. Biff is Christs childhood friend and a lovable bafoon. He relates the story of the missing 30 years in the life of Jesus and all the adventures they go through on the path to gaining the wisdom to become the messiah. Very much in the vein of those alternative history books (kind of). Although I would put this kind of comedy in the same category as HitchHikers guide to the Galaxy or anything Monty Python. If you "get" Monty Python you will likely find this very funny. Since the comedy is heavily couched on the most preposterous of contrived situations and circumstances, I won't give any of it away. I will say though that the author is a very creative person that manages to place Jesus (Joshua) and his pal Biff in nutty situations that somehow work.

Fairly breezy read even though its 444 pages and 15h 20min on Audio book which I went with this time the audio edition.

So far as the Audio version is concerned, I recommend it because the narration is pretty good.

[Book Concierge]

Deeper Than the Dead – Tamy Hoag – 3.5***
Set in a California town a few hours from Los Angeles, in 1985, Hoag’s thriller begins when four children stumble upon the partially buried body of a woman while playing in the woods. Hoag writes a tight, suspenseful tale. The action is fast-paced, and I was completely captivated from beginning to end.
LINK to my review

[Melissa]

The Thinking Woman's Guide to Real Magic by Emily Croy Barker
4 ★

Nora Fischer’s dissertation is stalled and her boyfriend is about to marry another woman. During a miserable weekend at a friend’s wedding, Nora wanders off and walks through a portal into a different world where she’s transformed from a drab grad student into a stunning beauty. Before long, she has a set of glamorous new friends and her romance with gorgeous, masterful Raclin is heating up. It’s almost too good to be true.
Then the elegant veneer shatters. Nora’s new fantasy world turns darker, a fairy tale gone incredibly wrong. Making it here will take skills Nora never learned in graduate school. Her only real ally—and a reluctant one at that—is the magician Aruendiel, a grim, reclusive figure with a biting tongue and a shrouded past. And it will take her becoming Aruendiel’s student—and learning magic herself—to survive. When a passage home finally opens, Nora must weigh her "real life" against the dangerous power of love and magic.

My Thoughts
A friend recommended this book about a girl who travels to another world. It isn't a book a would have normally picked up myself, but I'm glad she recommended it. Nora is an unhappy grad student who accidentally steps through a portal to another world while walking around the forest at a wedding. She is quickly accepted into a group of people by Ilissa and married to her son, Raclin. Things do not go well for her and she finds her self rescued by the magician Aruendiel. He is a bitter man with a mysterious past, but Nora is a strong woman who is able to handle his mood swings. Aruendiel was a hard character to like, but he grew on me the more I learned about him. The story flowed well and had many interesting characters. There were some areas of the story that dragged and I didn't quite understand them, but everything comes together at the end. I do wish it had ended differently though.

[Beverly]

The Urban Bestiary by Lyanda Lynn Haupt
4 stars

This was a fascinating book that talks about many of the animals that any of us may encounter in our everyday lives...moles, opossums, raccoons, various birds, etc. I really wish I had read it before we found an opossum in a barrel in our garage about a month ago. We were able to usher him out all in one piece but I think the situation would have been less traumatic for us and the opossum if I'd read this book first. Just an easy to read discussion of various species and with a lot of information that I was unaware of. I tried to make my husband read the chapter about moles because there's an ongoing battle on our property between him and them but he refused...he just hates them. There are a number of funny stories about wild confrontations and I really enjoyed the information regarding the tracks of each species. If you are interested in the wildlife that is all around you but you don't pay nearly enough attention to, or even if you do...I think you would really enjoy this book.

[Beverly]

Goodnight Everyone by Chris Houghton
4 stars

Still trying to catch up on last year's Mock Caldecott Award books. I loved the bright, bold colors in these illustrations. The drawings are kind of blocky and primitive but really cute. This would be a great book for a youngster's bedtime.

[Beverly]

Giant Squid by Candice Fleming
40 pages

Still trying to catch up on last year's Mock Caldecott Award books. Although I really enjoyed the illustrations, they could be a little overwhelming or scary for a little one. There are many up close pictures of individual parts of the squid...like the eye and the suckers...and it talks about the way the squid uses its "beak" to kill its prey. Then there is a full fold out page of the entire squid, which is still a little creepy but at the very end there's a sketch with descriptions of the various squid parts. Very informative.

[Beverly]

A Family is a Family is a Family by Sara O'Leary
5 stars

Still trying to catch up on last year's Mock Caldecott Award books. A wonderfully simple picture book that shows how diverse a family can be. Children are asked by their teacher to comment on something special regarding their families. One child is afraid that their story would be too unusual but then different children talked about foster parents, adoptive parents, grandparents, divorce parents, same sex parents and traditional parents. But no matter what, the people we live with and love are our families. The watercolor illustrations are wonderfully done. Great book!

[Beverly]

A Hat for Mrs. Goldman by Michelle Edwards
5 stars

Still trying to catch up on last year's Mock Caldecott Award books. An adorable story. The colors are soft and smudgy looking and perfectly suited to the story itself. My favorite illustration involves a dog in a dinosaur costume. This tells of a child's love for a neighbor she is close to and she wants to make a special hat for her and produce a mitzvah--a good deed. Just lovely.

[Beverly]

Freedom Over Me by Ashley Bryan
5 stars

Still trying to catch up on last year's Mock Caldecott Award books. The color palette of the illustrations is beautiful and the backgrounds are reproductions of documents (i.e. bills of sale for various slaves). The book is actually based on the actual paperwork from the Fairchilds Appraisement of the estate document of July 5, 1928 which shows the inventory of slaves, cows, hogs and cotton when it was time to liquidate the property. The author apparently inherited the paperwork concerning this transaction and wanted to use the information in a book. The estate had 11 slaves and this book gives 2 pages to each individual with one page where they explain what they do on the plantation and the next where they talk about their dreams.

[Book Concierge]

The Vicious Vet – M.C. Beaton – 3***
Book two in the popular Agatha Raisin cozy mystery series. I was not a fan of the first Agatha Raisin book, but she’s growing on me. One of the review blurbs calls Agatha “a glorious cross between Miss Marple, Auntie Mame, and Lucille Ball, with a tad of pit bull tossed in” (St Petersburg Times). I’m beginning to see that combination here, and I’m starting to appreciate the humor in Agatha’s character.
LINK to my review

[Beverly]

The Wild Wood by Charles De Lint
4 stars

I found this "fairy tale" to be very interesting especially since I read it immediately after "The Urban Bestiary". It was odd that although one was non-fiction and the other fantasy fiction, some of the themes were so closely interwoven. A young woman, a lapsed artist, lives in a cabin in the woods keeping mostly to herself. She begins to believe that there may be wood spirits of some sort who are guiding her to make a difference and save the fey community. There are some beautiful sketches at the beginning of each chapter and the fantasy is tempered with the truth that humans are destroying the natural world and everything in it. I enjoyed this although I found the ending to be a little vague.

[Book Concierge]

Station Eleven – Emily St John Mandel – 4****
The snow falling on Toronto gives the city a peaceful look, but the hysteria caused by a spreading plague that kills within days cannot be stopped. Dystopian or postapocalyptic novels are really not my thing, but I found this novel quite interesting. Mandel moves back and forth in time, and from character to character, keeping the reader off balance.
LINK to my review

[Beverly]

The Passage by Justin Cronin
4 stars

Wow, what an experience. I'm amazed when I read the reviews to find that this was such a run away hit not many years ago and I had never heard of it. Then a friend of mine recommended the 3rd book in the series and not being able to read out of order, I had to tackle this one first!!. I am really glad that I did and I'm anxious to start the next one in the series. The story starts out innocently enough with a 6 year old girl by the name of Amy being left at a nunnery. Her mother has endured a lot and doesn't feel that she can provide for her daughter adequately. By a strange twist of fate, Amy is selected by the military to take part in a dangerous experiment that is soon to go very wrong. Luckily, the agent employed to bring her in develops an emotional attachment and saves her from the worst but things are already accelerating in the world and now no one is safe. A wonderfully complex novel involving love, loyalty, heroics, adventure and a bit of horror...but don't let the horror put you off, in my opinion it's not graphic enough to be off putting.

[Terris]

Beverly wrote: "
The Passage by Justin Cronin
4 stars

Wow, what an experience. I'm amazed when I read the reviews to find that this was such a run away hit not many years ago and I ..."

Thanks for the info. I've seen this one and this author around for a long time. I think I'll put it on "the list." ;)

[Terris]

All Our Wrong Todays by Elan Mastai, 3.5*s, well-written, a little hard to get into, long set up.
I'm not sure how to describe this book! -- but it is a time travel book beginning in the future of 2016. But although it is our Now, it is a different Now than ours. And all the changes started in a time travel accident that happened in 1965. So there's a lot of figuring out and going back and forth from 1965 to the future of 2016, and into different outcomes and futures. It's really strange, it took me almost 150 pages to settle into it and get really interested. Then I couldn't put it down! Every time travel book is so different and each has its own set of rules it seems. It was interesting to see how this author envisions time travel and what can be done with it. I liked it but my recommendation would be "if-y" meaning read it at your own risk. I can see some people loving it and lots of people hating it. I say just try it and see what you think :)

[Book Concierge]

A Fierce Radiance – Lauren Belfer – 2.5**
Well this sounded much more interesting than it wound up being. I definitely enjoyed some aspects of the novel. I like reading medical histories, and the race to develop a procedure to mass produce penicillin was an important effort in World War II. But, Belfer included a romantic subplot, as well as broken family ties, a murder, and other elements. There is just too much going on between the covers of this book, and I never got caught up in the story.
LINK to my review

[Book Concierge]

The Dog Stars – Peter Heller – 3***
I am not a great fan of post-apocalyptic novels. And yet, here I am reading another one. Heller’s writing is both poetic and spare, with short sentences that come at the reader like staccato gun fire. This gives the novel a feeling of impending danger, of uncertainty and fear. I wanted to rush through it, and yet, I wanted to take my time to understand what was happening and how these characters were dealing with this different world.
LINK to my review

[Book Concierge]

March 18 - Currently Reading

TEXT - María, Daughter of Immigrants / Maria Antonietta Berriozabal
AUDIO in the car - My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry / Fredrik Backman
MP3 Player AUDIO - The Bat / Jo Nesbø

[Terris]

BC, I have so enjoyed Fredrik Backman's books. After you finish "My Grandmother..." you should definitely read Britt-Marie Was Here. It's my favorite so far! :)

[James]

Margaret Cezair-Thompson, The True History of Paradise [1999] 345 pages

On the surface this novel takes place during two or three days in 1981; it is the story of a woman, Jean Landing, who leaves Kingston for the North Coast in order to fly to the United States and escape the political violence as the opposition party and the CIA try to topple the Manley government. However, most of the book is in the form of flashbacks, which narrate Jean's whole life (and Jamaica's history) from the time of Independence on, in a mostly chronological order (third person, but from the perspective of Jean's memory); and within these flashbacks are other shorter flashbacks (in first person) to her ancestors from the earliest days of British rule. (The book has a family tree at the beginning to keep all the characters straight.) I generally like this sort of complex structure, but in this case the book is rather slow at the beginning, and seems to present a lot of background material where nothing much happens; as it moves closer to the time of the frame story it picks up interest and also becomes more violent. Much of the novel's focus is on the relationship of Jean to her parents, especially her mother Monica, and her sister Lana. (It originated as a short story about these four characters, and then was expanded into the present novel about Jamaican history.) Perhaps because I was busy this week with other things, it took me ten days to read, and this may have contributed to my having a hard time getting involved with the action until the middle of the book. Once I got interested in the characters, it was a good well-written historical novel, although I would have liked a more detailed analysis of the political events. (I was surprised and a little embarrassed to realize how little I knew about Manley and his government, given how interested I was at that time in politics and especially in the Caribbean and Central America.) It was the author's first novel, and I may eventually pick up her second and better known novel about Errol Flynn (The Pirate's Daughter).

[Beverly]

Out of the Easy by Ruta Sepetys
4 stars

A young girl, Josie Moraine, grows up in the brothel her mother works in. Josie is attempting to make her life mean more. Her mother is very inattentive and concerned only with herself plus she has a dangerous connection with the Mafia. Josie now works and lives at a local book store and still operates as the Madame's right hand girl. Before Josie gets out of the Big Easy to start college, she becomes involved in the death of a patron from her bookstore. As she tries to untangle the various mysteries concerning the murder, Josie learns life lessons regarding the type of people you want in your life and how much people can help when they know the whole story. Although this was very different from the last book I read by this author, I still really enjoyed the book.

[Beverly]

Miller's Valley by Anna Quindlen
4 stars

The Miller family have lived in Miller's Valley for generations and now the quiet routine of their lives is threatened by the plan to flood the valley to increase tourism. As the process of acquiring various properties continues, we follow the lives of those who choose to stay until there's no other choice--in particular, the Miller family. The story is told by Mimi Miller, the only daughter. She is a hard working young person who makes good grades and loves her life and her family. As family members age and change we see what can happen in a normal family...some are led down the wrong path, some have strange habits and/or medical problems and some succeed in spite of everything. This is just an interesting picture of a family under normal circumstances and unusual stresses. It's not a rip roaring adventure but it moves along with a gentle insistence.

[Book Concierge]

Voyager – Diana Gabaldon – 3***
Book three in the popular Outlander series. This isn’t great literature, but the series is fun to read. This installment delves more deeply into the supernatural, which I thought detracted from the central story.
LINK to my review

[Terris]

Beverly wrote: "
Miller's Valley by Anna Quindlen
4 stars

The Miller family have lived in Miller's Valley for generations and now the quiet routine of their lives is threatened..."

This one's on my radar. Glad you liked it!

[Book Concierge]

Chestnut Street – Maeve Binchy – 3.5***
Binchy does a great job of giving us a picture of a neighborhood in this collection of short stories. Characters come in contact with one another, interact, leave, and return. Binchy’s characters seem like real people; I recognize many of them though I live in Wisconsin and this is set in Dublin.
LINK to my review

[Book Concierge]

Maria, Daughter of Immigrants – Maria Antonietta Berrizobal – 3.5***
I really enjoyed and was captivated by Maria’s personal journey as she outlines it in the book. But a little more than half-way through the book, it seemed to become more of a history of the politics of the city than Maria’s autobiography. I still found this interesting, because I’m from San Antonio, but I think it detracted from the central story of her own life.
LINK to my review

[Beverly]

Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver
4 stars

I was in such a hurry to read this so I could go see the movie and now I'm not even sure I want to go. Although I appreciated the story line--it's kind of like groundhog day for mean girls--I could hardly tolerate the reader's voice (this was read by Sarah Drew). This may have been a book that I should have read instead of listened to. Ms. Drew's voice was very authentic for a group of teenagers but since almost everyone was a teenager, the "attitude" just became annoying. A group of 4 BFF's who are over the top self indulgent and self centered have an automobile accident on the way home from a party and the girl who is killed waked up to relive the day over again. Each day, as expected, gives her more opportunities to correct her behavior. I was glad to see the growth in this character. In fact, I think this would be great required reading for teenage girls.

[Beverly]

Old Dog Baby Baby by Julie Fogliano
3 stars

Catching up on this year's Mock Caldecott candidates. Illustrations are watercolor on paper and I loved the effect of the "water spots". A cute little rhyming story about a baby and the family's loyal old dog who loves him.

[Beverly]

Nanette's Baguette by Mo Willems
5 stars

Catching up on this year's Mock Caldecott candidates. I loved this story of Nanette finally being old enough to be sent to pick up the day's baguette. Who knew there were so many rhyming words to go with Nanette and baguette...not me. A delightful tongue twister that would be so much fun to read to a child.

[Beverly]

A Poem for Peter by Andrea Davis Pinkney
5 stars

Catching up on this year's Mock Caldecott candidates. This is the story of Jacob Ezra Katz (who changed his name to Ezra Jack Keats so as not to sound so Jewish after WW II) who is the author and illustrator of "The Snowy Day"--considered one of the most important American books of the 20th century. He was led to write The Snowy Day based on his desire to portray ethnic backgrounds and urban settings and on pictures he had saved for some 20 years of Peter...a "brown sugar boy". The illustrations, which I really enjoyed, are torn paper and fabric collage.

[Beverly]

The Princess and the Warrior by Duncan Tonatiuh
5 stars

Catching up on this year's Mock Caldecott candidates. This is a lovely story about the Aztecs and how they explained the naming of 2 volcanoes. The colors are rich and earthy. Some of the words in the story are in Nahuatl (and are used in Spanish today) and there is a glossary at the back of the book. The story had a little bit of a Romeo and Juliet flavor but at the end, the princess is only in a coma and instead of taking his life, the warrior just fulfills the promise he made to the Princess and stays by her side waiting for her awaken. The sleeping volcano is seen as the sleeping princess and the semi-active volcano is the warrior who still every once in awhile tries to awaken his love. Just a sweet story.