Reviews for June 2024 Theme: Non-fiction

[Book Concierge]

Read any good books lately that fit our monthly theme?

Here's the place to share your opinions / reactions / recommendations.

Our June 2024 theme is:

Read a Non-fiction book. (suggested by Beverly)


Happy reading!

[Koren]

The Last Ocean: A Journey through Memory and Forgetting by Nicci Gerrard
4 stars


Someone who is just beginning this journey through Alzheimer's and dementia, either personally or as a caregiver, will find this book helpful. The author talks about her father and also talks about the clinical aspect and gives advice on traveling this long road.

[Book Concierge]

One Hundred Saturdays – Michael Frank – 4****
Subtitle: Stella Levi and the Search for a Lost World. This is a memoir as related by Stella to Michael Frank, of her childhood and youth in Rhodes, her interment at various concentration camps (including Auschwitz), her survival and triumph after moving to the United States. I’m so glad she told her story and that I read it.
LINK to my full review

[Koren]

Troubled: A Memoir of Foster Care, Family, and Social Class by Rob Henderson
4 stars


The author certainly led an interesting life. Going into foster homes at a young age, being adopted by a wonderful family that lasted a very short time due to divorce and overcoming obstacles. I couldn't put this book down until the last few chapters that seemed more like a college term paper than a memoir.

[Koren]

The Orchard by Theresa Weir
5 stars


When I started this book I had to look to make sure it was a memoir. It read more like fiction. But it is nonfiction. There were several layers to this book. One is how our childhood experiences can influence decisions we make when we are barely adult enough to make important decisions but maybe, just maybe those decisions can turn into good decisions. Another layer is the use of chemicals in our environment. Living in an area where I can hear the crop dusting planes every day this really hit home. The message here is whether we can live with them or without them but there are no answers here. After a while I could not put this book down. I would definitely look for more by this author.

[Book Concierge]

Four Seasons In Rome – Anthony Doerr – 4****
Subtitle: On Twins, Insomnia, and the Biggest Funeral in the History of the World. This is Doerr’s memoir of a year he spent as a fellow at the American Academy of Arts and Letters. The award came with a studio in which to write, an apartment, and a stipend. And, of course, the experience of a year in Rome. I was completely delighted by his recollections.
LINK to my full review

[Carol]

Life and Death at Windover: Excavations of a 7,000-Year-Old Pond Cemetery - Rachel K. Wentz - (Florida)
Genera: Archaeology/Native Americans/Non-Fiction
5★
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Koren]

Raised on Freedom: Favored Tales of a Boomer Kid by Gail McGuire
4 stars


A trip down memory lane, back to a day when kids went out to play and didn't come home until late. This was written like a grandmother telling her memories to her grandchildren, and if the author has grandchildren, I'm sure they will treasure this account of her childhood years growing up in rural Idaho.

[SouthWestZippy]

5 stars
Taken from the Facebook description page. "In this gripping memoir of a young man, a wolf, their parallel lives and ultimate collision, Bryce Andrews describes life on the remote, windswept Sun Ranch in southwest Montana. The Sun’s twenty thousand acres of rangeland occupy a still-wild corner of southwest Montana—a high valley surrounded by mountain ranges and steep creeks with portentous names like Grizzly and Bad Luck. Just over the border from Yellowstone National Park, the Sun holds giant herds of cattle and elk amid many predators—bears, mountain lions, and wolves."

I am giving this book five stars because of its very raw real look at the life of a modern cowboy. Do I agree with everything done and about this life, no I don't, there is a lot more to this lifestyle and work. If you don't like reading about death of animals and humans making stupid choices, then skip this book.

[SouthWestZippy]

5 stars
Taken from the book. "The outspoken actress, talk show host, and reality television star offers up a no-holds-barred memoir, including an eye-opening insider account of her tumultuous and heart-wrenching thirty-year-plus association with the Church of Scientology."

Leah Remini is everything you would expect a celebrity to be, arrogant, motivated to be famous, outspoken and calls out people while not liking people calling her out. I have never been a fan of Leah Remini and the book does not change my mind on being one. I will say, after reading the book I have a better understanding of why she is the way she is and find myself having respect for her for going after and exposing Scientology.

[SouthWestZippy]

3 stars
Taken from the Goodreads synopsis. "At eighteen months Hillary Reston, a happy, healthy toddler, was struck by a remarkably high fever. On the advice of her doctor, her parents, James Reston, Jr., and Denise Leary, administered Tylenol and anxiously waited for the fever to subside. Five days later it did, but the damage was done. Over the course of the next five months their bubbly, highly verbal child was radically and irrevocably changed. Worse yet, no doctor could explain what evil and still unidentified force had stolen Hillary’s ability to speak or understand language, hurtled her into a seemingly endless cycle of seizures, destroyed her kidneys, and taken her to the very brink of death.

For her parents, discovering what had happened to their child and how to assure the quality of her life became an obsession. This quest for answers would take them from the nation’s hospitals to the office of a pioneering geneticist in Texas and the vaulted halls of the National Institutes of Health."

I found this book both a wonderful read and a dreadful read. James Reston Jr's first part of the book walks you through what life was before the fever and what happened during and after. From there Reston goes on a rant by telling off others on all the things people did not do or should have done. Never once really examining himself or his wife. Yes, I felt they had their own hand in things on getting things done faster and second guessing the ones with degrees in the field. The last few chapters I did not like even a little bit, they were clearly a speech.
Why the three stars? It is still a thought-provoking good book.

[Koren]

Dancing with Max: A Mother and Son Who Broke Free by Emily Colson
4 stars


As a parent of an Asperger's child, I could totally relate to most of the things the author experienced. I admired her tenacity to fight for what she thought was right for her child. I was fortunate that I lived in an area where help was available, and I did not have to fight the system the way she did. Her fighting spirit and her faith helped her get through some trying experiences. Her father is Charles Colson. I was not familiar with him, but he spent time in prison because of his association with Richard Nixon and Watergate. This was not touched on very much in the book, but he did write a prologue and epilogue.