Karla Eaton > Recent Status Updates

So, on my way home from this ridiculously exhausting trip to Scotland this weekend, I needed a book and picked this up at the airport. The author is praised as the British John Grisham, so I chose this. Even though I was exhausted and should have slept, I could not and had to keep reading. What a great story. Friendship ruined, paths crossed, murder, success, fascinating!

I chose this book because it is the required reading for my daughter's freshman year of college. I like the premise and tone of the first few pages. This author is new to me which is exciting! I love finding new authors I like - so far so good!

What a soap opera! I am embarrassed to admit, though, this is a page turner and a tale worthy of Downtown Abbey! WWII is starting and Mary is on her own again after her husband hanged himself in fear of being sent back to the trenches of war. I loved the irony of the letter being misconstrued by her husband and the sad truth of his pension increase. I wonder when Anna will turn up again - she must be Aurora's mother?

Usually this is not my type of book, but a friend liked it, and I had it on the shelf, so I picked it up. The first couple of chapters were okay, but as the story has progressed, I like it more and more. The voices are strong and true. Right now, the narrative has switched from modern day to WWI where we are learning some of the secret of the Lisle family.

I adore thus book which is a happy marriage of art history, ancient history and modern thriller told through three narratives - ancient man, medieval nan, and modern nan. I see some pieces coming together but have no idea what the murderers are motivated by or protecting. The nazi loot seems like a red herring. Churning through pages.

Oh - I love this - ancient books, archaeology with cave paintings, intrigue and espionage, and characters with wonderful voices. This is a great page turner to read right before I have to get serious and back to school.

Wow! So scared for Zeitoun,but I love Kathy's remembrance of "touch the rock". Such a great anecdote to remind us to persevere. I am very worried about the dogs he was feeding...must keep reading!

Zaitoun is an amazing man! How wonderful to read about someone who thrives on hard work, who gets energized by helping others, who sees beauty in everything. When he rescues the dogs, you know this is a man who rises to any occasion rather than let life's hardships warp him. The fact that he is a Muslim is wonderful as well because his story and his family's being and attitude is a wonderful antidote to racism.

Eggers captures the readers' attentions with a compelling couple - the Zeitouns, a father from Syria whose entrepreneurial skills and energy, with help from his bright, hard working wife, have created a thriving painting business in New Orleans. The exposition gives enough background for us to be vested in this family, as Hurricane Katrina makes land. Great voice and true personalities speed the pace of the story.

Bleak. This is hard to read because you know the horrors of the time period are not exaggerated. I do not love the simplistic style, but I understand the appeal for an all school read so it is accessible for everyone.

Insects galore! Can you imagine an insect which eats an ant from the underside but stops at the exoskeleton so that it can walk inside the shell like a Trojan horse scam to protect itself and surprise prey?? Yikes! Roosevelt's son, Kermit, is a crazy daredevil. Fighting the forest, the bugs, the natives, the rapids, the heat - more than I could ever imagine.

I love reading this book for the same reason I love reading about climbing Everest - I am never doing it myself. Firstly, the grandeur and enormity of the river and its tributaries keeps astounding me: "The Madeira, which is so large that its basin is more than twice the size of France, winds for more than two thousand miles" (130). YIKES! Secondly - the terrifying elements - all the critters - makes me shudder...

What a man! Can you imagine taking two months to get to a river offshoot of the Amazon before your trip even begins - what an adventurer. Engaging novel so far!

The writer's description of Leonard's depression makes me almost physically ill. How powerful and terrifying. Having had people in my life who suffered like this, it makes my heart ache in the writing's truth and terror.

Madly, Michell, Leonard -- all wonderfully true characters with wonderful voices and crazy lives. Too spicy to teach in high school but some great passages I think I could use for analysis in AP. Right now I am screaming at all of them to grow up!

Recommended to me by Mariela Mannion, I had no doubts when I bought this book, and my feelings were confirmed in the first 50 pages. About an English Major at Brown who looks at the idea of creating a marriage through Victorian Literature as a plot driver, she entwines this with her life and a changing course on Semiotics. Delightful voice and so easy to relate to... adorable, funny, and thought provoking.

While this is cheesy in its Americana heroic creation - the chiseled military hero whose wife and kids are his home, the assassination attempt under his nose, this is a fun read nonetheless.

Katherine, or Kit as she was known, is a newly widowed woman who only wants to live life without scrutiny of the court, yet sadly, Henry VIII has found her charming because she is not one of the coquettish ladies of the court. This historical fiction is a fun escape from the modern world back into the Renaissance and Reformation.

This fun pirate book was apparently the impetus for the Jack Sparrow films, and when you read it, you can certainly see aspects of that story in this one. I like the occult aspects - like Mate Care-for which protects the pirates, for instance, but the real connection is the non-pirate folk who are involved and sympathetic to the pirate cause, like Shandy and Beth.

I love the structure of this novel - the story told and retold from different perspectives. First Harry, then his mother Maise, the. Hugo Barrington, pompous illegitimate father and resident evil gentry, and now the mysterious Old Jack Tar. The big specter is how far will Hugo go to stop Harry from being his heir?

In typical Archer fashion, he creates a story with endearing characters and enough ambiguity to keep the reader intrigued. The ragged main character, Harry Clifton whose father was killed in the war, lives hand to mouth until his lovely singing voice and quick mind offer him an opportunity at a better life. I love watching him handle the culture class of wealth versus poverty in his first years at boarding school.

So sad. What a debacle on every level. Yes, the prison guards were wrong but the circumstances of that prison led to all of that horror, like cars on a collision course. How could those in charge not gave seen that tragedy coming?

I am fascinated with the information on Chip who was part of Abu Gharib's scandal. The idea of shyness and conformity is profoundly important to me because I see it and fight it all the time in class. You cannot gave a good discussion about literature when the majority of the class is too shy to counter another's ideas. It is easy to imagine those being easiest to manipulate.

This is really hard to read because you see the ugly truth in each and every example. For each, I could point to a modern equivalent, like the Kitty Genovese case where people heard her being attacked but did nothing. Just like the Lulu Lemon murder last year in DC, the store next door heard all the noise and violence but did nothing.

Fascinated by the teacher/learner volt experiment. That list of 10 steps to lead good people to do evil is so true. You can extrapolate that to so many scenarios, from bad institutions like the car company that does issue a recall to criminal activity in governments. All acts by good people who fell prey to one or more of those factors.

Just watching a Harry Potter. Dobby gets clothing from his master which frees him - another example of the power of clothing - just like the guard uniforms - making your status in the world!

I love that Doug used the trauma of this event to direct his career. Very cool!

Seriously I will stop soon BUT I like the discussion of the uniforms for the guards and prison smocks. They say clothes make the man and here it is shown so true. We all feel worse when we have a cold if we jeep lazing in our pjs but if we get up, shower and dress, we feel better. Same with dressing for success at work. Your outside appearance can mold your internal attitude.

I need to stop posting but if I don't I will forget. The discussion about the nazi doctors having to choose who to kill is like a serial killer, like BTK who was a deacon in his church: "radically different psychological constellations of self" which allows a person to be so evil and so good in the same lifetime.