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What books did you get from the library, bookstore or online ~ 2021
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madrano
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May 05, 2021 06:27AM
Yes, i am frustrated when i must put the book down now!
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I finished the book last night and was pleased overall. Oddly, when i added it to my list of "Books Read", i learned last month i read Kate Quinn's The Rose Code, which i also liked. It's about WWII code breaking women, following three women. Apparently i have problems remembering names of authors, as well as people i meet. What a shame.
ANYway, there is a familiarity to her writing, i now see. Back and forth with the timeline, could use more editing but once you are into the book, you are all in. By the last 200 pages, i couldn't put either book down.
After adding the title & realizing i'd read two by Quinn, i realized i've averaged one WWII novel each month this year. No wonder i'm feeling tired of them. However, there has been much information about regular lives adjusting to war in each, so well worth it.
I am getting worse and worse when it comes to names. When reading an eBook, I always highlight the names. If it's a paper book I have to keep a sheet of paper as my book mark with names. Sometimes I will google the character list for books. Honestly more then a half dozen characters and I have trouble keeping everyone straight. :(
For the most part, many times i only note the name of the author when i've finished the book & am recording it onto my Books Read list. I suppose this is another reason i've reread more books than i care to remember.
For $2 I purchased the eBook of Triangle: The Fire That Changed America by David von DrehleThis book has been on my TBR list forever. When I saw the Amazon sale, I decided to get it.
Over the years i've read good things about that book. I hope it's as good as it sounds, Alias. Please let us know.
madrano wrote: "Over the years i've read good things about that book. I hope it's as good as it sounds, Alias. Please let us know."Will do !
Earlier this year John highly recommended Barry Lopez’s About This Life, so I put myself on that waiting list. I haven’t read anything else Lopez has written. I was hooked by his introduction, which was basically a brief biographer introducing himself and how/where he grew up. I liked his style, the way he conveyed his memories and his appreciation of literature.Slowly over the next few chapters we missed connections. His writing continued to be compelling and the topics (diving, cold country, volcanoes, and making pottery with anagama kilns, to name a few) are ones of interest to me. To this moment I cannot explain the disconnect I experienced with his prose. It wasn’t constant but enough to deter me from rushing to resume reading.
The final third of the book had me fully with him again. They were more recaps of certain moments/feelings/experiences in his life. I was surprised at how much appreciated the work, given much of the earlier section. Weird.
One of the best things he did was to describe the land, sky and animals around him. His writing soared with vivid descriptions and observations. This is why I know I will read another book by him. The man truly knew how to express his appreciation of nature.
A couple of the chapters were great because they were so off the beaten path. In one, he details freight flights via jets, traveling thousands of miles around the world with cargo you wouldn’t believe--cars, animals, foods, components to buildings, treasures and so much more. In another chapter he discusses the dead critters he found dead on the road while driving halfway across the country. He stopped for each, to pull the body off the road, sometimes hiding it under leaves and branches. Included were the carcasses of mice, snakes, raccoons, dear, birds and more.
As I wrote, a mixed bag for me. But when someone can write as he can and select great subjects to explore, I want to give it a try. John, I surely appreciate your post about this book and the introduction to a strong writer.
That's the trouble with essay collections - not everything resonates.
I just got
The Long Call by Ann Cleeves from the library because I have received an ARC of the second in the series,
The Heron's Cry for review. Started, and it is excellent!❤📚
Sounds like you found a new author to love. That's the best.
John, too true. Usually when i read a book of essays, i have either heard of the person or read something else by them. This was a first and i'm glad it went well.
Interesting, Sandy, that you are able to do that. I look forward to reading your comments on both books, as Barbara shared about the first in the series. I liked what she wrote about it.
As you may be able to tell, i had to drop several books in recent months, primarily because i had too many books on loan. Above, i mentioned the Barry Lopez book, which took me 5 weeks to read.Tonight i finished a book i began in March, The Light of Days: The Untold Story of Women Resistance Fighters in Hitler's Ghettos. The book mixes history i knew, primarily about the ghetto fights in Poland, with the fresh information about the numbers of young women who took part.
While i learned very much, i felt author Judy Batalion's presentation was wanting. I hesitate to state this, as she spent over a decade on the project, after finding one book written by one of the women right after the war. Then, Batalion had to find funding to get the book translated, as well.
As noted above, there are numerous women who joined in fighting the Nazis, be it with rifles, helping Jews escape to safety or protecting the children. Each story is a marvel of humanity. Unfortunately, Batalion opted to tell the story more or less chronologically, which makes sense. However, because chapters focused on different women & their work throughout the war, names blurred for me. This seems such a disservice to their individuality.
Still, their bravery, what they suffered when captured and their constant worries comes through strongly. In the two concluding chapters, the author explains why so many of these stories were lost. I had no idea there were divisions in Israel about whether to focus on European Jews or Israeli survivors, but there was. Additionally, some warned women that it might be unwise to let people know what they did, as it might mar the way people look at such rough women! Others, of course, just didn't want to talk/share about their war work. And then, the population of the world focused in fairly short order to other aspects of the war, including just focusing on the camps.
I'm glad i read it, let me hasten to add. Do i need to remember the names or their bold acts? Overall, it is the fact of the risks they took. Many lost their lives or suffered years in camps due to their anti-Nazi work. We need to make certain we do not forget.
madrano wrote:Tonight i finished a book i began in March, The Light of Days: The Untold Story of Women Resistance Fighters in Hitler's Ghettos. The book mixes history i knew, primarily about the ghetto fights in Poland, with the fresh information about the numbers of young women who took part..."
Overall, it is the fact of the risks they took. Many lost their lives or suffered years in camps due to their anti-Nazi work. We need to make certain we do not forget.
I'm sorry the book wasn't exactly what you were looking for. Still, it sounds like it was a worthwhile read and added to your knowledge.
madrano wrote: "Earlier this year John highly recommended Barry Lopez’s About This Life, so I put myself on that waiting list. I haven’t read anything else Lopez has written. I was hook..."FYI- Amazon has the kindle book of
Artic Dreams by Barry Lopez on sale for $2.The book is highly rated on Amazon.
This New York Times–bestselling exploration of the Arctic, a National Book Award winner, is “one of the finest books ever written about the far North” (Publishers Weekly).
“The nation’s premier nature writer” travels to a landscape at once barren and beautiful, perilous and alluring, austere yet teeming with vibrant life, and shot through with human history (San Francisco Chronicle). The Arctic has for centuries been a destination for the most ambitious explorers—a place of dreams, fears, and awe-inspiring spectacle. This “dazzling” account by the author of Of Wolves and Men takes readers on a breathtaking journey into the heart of one of the world’s last frontiers (The New York Times).
Based on Barry Lopez’s years spent traveling the Arctic regions in the company of Eskimo hunting parties and scientific expeditions alike, Arctic Dreams investigates the unique terrain of the human mind, thrown into relief against the vastness of the tundra and the frozen ocean. Eye-opening and profoundly moving, it is a magnificent appreciation of how wilderness challenges and inspires us.
Renowned environmentalist and author of Desert Solitaire Edward Abbey has called Arctic Dreams “a splendid book . . . by a man who is both a first-rate writer and an uncompromising defender of the wild country and its native inhabitants”—and the New Yorker hails it as a “landmark” work of travel writing. A vivid, thoughtful, and atmospheric read, it has earned multiple prizes, including the National Book Award, the Christopher Medal, the Oregon Book Award, and a nomination for the National Book Critics Circle Award.
This ebook features an illustrated biography of Barry Lopez including rare images and never-before-seen documents from the author’s personal collection.
Alias Reader wrote: "I'm sorry the book wasn't exactly what you were looking for. Still, it sounds like it was a worthwhile read and added to your knowledge...."That's exactly it, Alias. While i remember very few of the names or particulars about the women, i stand in awe of all they accomplished, as well as their subsequent lives.
In my post i neglected to thank Barbara for her review of this book, which motivated me to read it. Thanks, Barbara, for another good book i've added to my "Books Read" list!
Alias, it's funny you mentioned Lopez's Arctic book, as that's the one i most want to read. I suppose given the topic, it doesn't surprise you, though. :-)
madrano wrote: "Alias, it's funny you mentioned Lopez's Arctic book, as that's the one i most want to read. I suppose given the topic, it doesn't surprise you, though. :-)":)
I borrowed this novel from Amazon PrimeFrom These Broken Streets----Roland Merullo
Roland Merullo, bestselling author of Once Night Falls, returns with a galvanizing historical novel of Nazi-occupied Naples and the rage and resistance of a people under siege.
Italy, 1943. The Nazi occupation has cemented its grip on the devastated city of Naples.
Giuseppe DiPietra, a curator in the National Archives, has a subversive plan to aid the Allies. If he’s discovered, forced labor or swift execution. Lucia Pastone, secretary for the Italian Fascist government, is risking her own life in secret defiance of orders. And Lucia’s father, Aldo, is a black marketeer who draws Giuseppe and Lucia into the underworld—for their protection and to help plant the seeds of resistance. Their fates are soon intertwined with those of Aldo’s devoted lover and a boy of the streets who’ll do anything to live another day. And all of Naples is about to join forces to overcome impossible odds and repel the Nazi occupiers.
Inspired by a true historic uprising, From These Broken Streets is a richly layered novel of the extraordinary daring of ordinary people whose bonds of love, family, and unfaltering courage could not be broken.
I've not heard this story. It just goes to show us there are many more stories out there about that War. I hope you find it rewarding, Alias.
Went to the library today to return
The Long Call by Ann Cleeves, and I wasn't going to pick up another book, honest, because I have so many read for reviews that I can't keep up with them, BUT the new Paul Cleave was sitting there screaming 'Pick me! Please take me home!' How could I resist? So I have come home with
The Quiet People I guess there will be no sleep for me tonight!🤣😂❤📚
LOL, Sandy. Why resist? Relish every page!
madrano wrote: "I've not heard this story. It just goes to show us there are many more stories out there about that War. I hope you find it rewarding, Alias."It was an Amazon suggestion. Another book by this author also caught my eye. I liked the preview that Amazon let's you read.
Once Night Falls by Roland Merullo
A harrowing historical novel of the extraordinary acts of ordinary people in Nazi-occupied Italy.
Italy, 1943. Luca Benedetto has joined the partisans in their fight against the German troops ravaging the shores of his town on Lake Como. While risking his life to free his country, Luca is also struggling to protect Sarah, his Jewish lover who’s hiding in a mountain cabin. As the violent Nazi occupation intensifies, Luca and Sarah fear for more than their own lives.
In the heart of their village, their mothers have also found themselves vulnerable to the encroaching Nazis. But Luca’s mother, undeterred, is devising her own revenge on the occupiers. With Mussolini deposed and Allied armies fighting their way up the peninsula, the fate of Italy hangs in the balance, and the people of Lake Como must decide how much they’re prepared to sacrifice for family, friends, and the country they love.
The most trying of times will create the most unexpected heroes and incredible acts of courage in this stirring narrative as seen through the eyes of those devastated by war-torn Italy.
When we were in Sicily early 2020, i was interested in seeing reference to that war. It’s a comment on my own lack of knowledge that i just didn’t think they were much impacted by it—they were and honor the outcome.
I just downloaded the 2021 Pulitzer winner in the biography category. 
The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X by Les PayneAn epic biography of Malcolm X finally emerges, drawing on hundreds of hours of the author’s interviews, rewriting much of the known narrative.
Les Payne, the renowned Pulitzer Prize–winning investigative journalist, embarked in 1990 on a nearly thirty-year-long quest to interview anyone he could find who had actually known Malcolm X—all living siblings of the Malcolm Little family, classmates, street friends, cellmates, Nation of Islam figures, FBI moles and cops, and political leaders around the world. His goal was ambitious: to transform what would become over a hundred hours of interviews into an unprecedented portrait of Malcolm X, one that would separate fact from fiction.
The result is this historic biography that conjures a never-before-seen world of its protagonist, a work whose title is inspired by a phrase Malcolm X used when he saw his Hartford followers stir with purpose, as if the dead were truly arising, to overcome the obstacles of racism. Setting Malcolm’s life not only within the Nation of Islam but against the larger backdrop of American history, the book traces the life of one of the twentieth century’s most politically relevant figures “from street criminal to devoted moralist and revolutionary.”
In tracing Malcolm X’s life from his Nebraska birth in 1925 to his Harlem assassination in 1965, Payne provides searing vignettes culled from Malcolm’s Depression-era youth, describing the influence of his Garveyite parents: his father, Earl, a circuit-riding preacher who was run over by a street car in Lansing, Michigan, in 1929, and his mother, Louise, who continued to instill black pride in her children after Earl’s death. Filling each chapter with resonant drama, Payne follows Malcolm’s exploits as a petty criminal in Boston and Harlem in the 1930s and early 1940s to his religious awakening and conversion to the Nation of Islam in a Massachusetts penitentiary.
With a biographer’s unwavering determination, Payne corrects the historical record and delivers extraordinary revelations—from the unmasking of the mysterious NOI founder “Fard Muhammad,” who preceded Elijah Muhammad; to a hair-rising scene, conveyed in cinematic detail, of Malcolm and Minister Jeremiah X Shabazz’s 1961 clandestine meeting with the KKK; to a minute-by-minute account of Malcolm X’s murder at the Audubon Ballroom.
Introduced by Payne’s daughter and primary researcher, Tamara Payne, who, following her father’s death, heroically completed the biography, The Dead Are Arising is a penetrating and riveting work that affirms the centrality of Malcolm X to the African American freedom struggle.
That sounds like a very good bio. The Autobiography of Malcom X is still my favorite autobiography ever.
Started Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted by Suleika Jaouad. I am amazed at her writing as she discusses her cancer diagnosis and dealing with it.
Interesting, Julie. We hope you’ll share your final thoughts upon completion. It must be daunting to put this story out for the public to read, evaluate and rate.
Last year Annette favorably reviewed a historical fiction she liked, Kiran Millwood Hargrave’s The Mercies. Set in 1600s Norway, it tells the story of a village whose men die in a freak storm and how the survivors fare. The story is well woven.There are primarily two main characters, both female, and their interaction is a major part of the story. Sadly, there is a push for uncovering witchcraft in the nation with the Sami people being the targets. It’ll shiver your timber’s.
Annette’s review can be found here— https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Well shut my mouth! I just began reading Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century, which i thought, not having seen the award winning movie, was a novel. N fact Jessica Bruder has expanded articles written over the years on homeless, traveling seasonal workers. I’m fascinated, as i had no idea how widespread this is, not to mention sad for the older workers.
I completed Jessica Bruder’s Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century this weekend. I felt she exposed this side of the US economy very well. Frankly, i had no idea but know now how to observe better as we travel across the country.The book explores thelives of those who are houseless, as most call themselves. Far too many are retired people whose base was knocked out from under them in the ‘08 crisis. Not only did they lose their jobs, their savings while seeking other employment but also their homes, which we suddenly worth much, much less.
Quite a number (no stats are available because there is no way to do so at this point, mostly because they have no address, so no census numbers) took to the road—in RVs, vans and sedans—eating, sleeping and living out of those vehicles. Bruder covers their lives and how they survive, the groups of those in similar circumstances and their “conventions”, usually in Jan & Feb. after the usual seasonal work has ended.
And oh what work! You know all those Amazon packages that appear on your doorstep? From October through December, the houseless are the ones walking the warehouse concrete floors gathering your order. It was not unusual for a 70-year old worker to walk over 10 miles a day to fills such orders, usually for minimum wage, using the dispensers of pain products available to workers to get them through the 8-10 hour shifts. I hurt just reading about them. (Other employment includes sugar beet warehouses, amusement parks, national park system, etc.)
Not all are old (imagine spending your 80s this way) and there are even children being raised this way. The surviving spirit of this subculture is mentioned, as well. While there are a few comparisons made between today and the 1930s, this is quite different in unique ways.
This book is quite readable and eye-opening. I do not often recommend books but this one is worth the time. The reading is easy—well edited and smoothly shifting. I don’t think i can see things, particularly our economy, in the same way again.
madrano wrote: I don’t think i can see things, particularly our economy, in the same way again..."Excellent review, Deb.
Thanks, Alias. Frankly, Dan is tired of me talking about this book, so is going to read it, too. 😊
Have you seen the movie “Nomadland” based on this novel starring Frances McDormand? Won academy awards including Best Picture.
I have not, Simon. I was surprised when i began reading the book because I thought it was fiction. Now I look forward to seeing the film. I can imagine which character was chosen to be the lead, as Linda was mentioned throughout the book but seeing the depiction will be insightful.
Haven’t watched the whole movie but is slow but shows the culture of “Nomads” - still have yet to finish it.
madrano wrote: "Thanks, Alias. Frankly, Dan is tired of me talking about this book, so is going to read it, too. 😊"So there is method to you madness as the saying goes. :)
Indeed, Alias!Simon, a better look at that community is what i want from the film, so i’m glad to read your comment.
I’m a few chapters into Morgan Rogers’s Honey Girl and enjoying it. The book opens with the MC, who recently earned a doctorate in astronomy, awakening in Las Vegas, realizing she may have gotten married the previous night. Her new bride has vanished, leaving a note but not even her name. It’s not a mystery but the story of a young woman coming into her own in Portland, OR., with a strict military father, no job offers and the love she feels for her stranger-bride. I like the prose and the story thus far.
Is there a mystery angle at all regarding the missing woman? Sounds as though the premise requires suspension of disbelief.
No, no mystery involved, i just wanted to be cautious with spoiling the story. It’s more a question of whether this woman, who is obviously capable and smart, can break away from her father’s expectations and still be who she really is.
Audible recently held a half-price sale on all titles, something they hadn't done in quite a while, so I purchased these titles at less than the cost of a credit:The Starlings of Bucharest
Anything for a Quiet Life and Other New Mystery Stories
High, Wide, and Handsome: An American Journey
John wrote: "Audible recently held a half-price sale on all titles, something they hadn't done in quite a while, so I purchased these titles at less than the cost of a credit:."Maybe it was part of Amazon's Prime sale. I know they had audible on sale price. I forget what the deal was.
I put my self on the library wait list for The Miracle of Mindfulness: An Introduction to the Practice of Meditation by Thich Nhat HanhI've enjoyed other books by him. I'm hoping this will help me start up my meditation practice again.
Good deal, John. The Julian Bishop book sounds as though it could give us travel info, as well as insights into the USA, i hope each book pleases you.
madrano wrote: "I’m a few chapters into Morgan Rogers’s Honey Girl and enjoying it."I finished this novel over the weekend. Ultimately it was less satisfying than i’d hoped. The MC began addressing her problems by the end, which was the real focus. There were some strong examples of excellent friendships and growth, which i felt enhanced the book quite a bit. For some readers it may have been a bit much, I suspect.
Next up is Helene Tursten’s Detective Inspector Huss, set in Sweden.
Sorry it didn't meet your expectations, deb. I hope you have better luck with Inspector Huss.
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