Plainsong by Kent Haruf

First sentence:

Here was this man Tom Guthrie in Holt standing at the back window in the kitchen of his house smoking cigarettes and looking out over the back lot where the sun was just coming up.

Description:

"Ambitious, but never seeming so, Kent Haruf reveals a whole community as he interweaves the stories of a pregnant high school girl, a lonely teacher, a pair of boys abandoned by their mother, and a couple of crusty bachelor farmers. From simple elements, Haruf achieves a novel of wisdom and grace--a narrative that builds in strength and feeling until, as in a choral chant, the voices in the book surround, transport, and lift the reader off the ground." -- from the back cover

My thoughts:

A quiet and beautiful book! Haruf's description of place and characters drew me in to discover a family of friends.

Date read: 10/16/2015

Series: Plainsong, #1
Rating: 3*/5 = good
Genre: Fiction

ISBN-10: 0375705856
ISBN-13: 9780375705854
Publisher: Vintage
Year: 1999
# of pages: 301
Binding: Paperback
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Books I read in September 2015: Dust: Thin Air; Girl in the Dark

20. Dust by Elizabeth Bear

My thoughts:

This is an interesting book of characters on an aging space ship. At times, I would forget that the world of "angels" and gardens were in outer space and the characters of Rien and Perceval kept my interest as they make their way through the ship. I look forward to reading the next book in the series, Chill.

Date read: 9/10/2015
Series: Jacob's Ladder, #1
Rating: 3*/5 = good
Genre: SF
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21. Thin Air by Rachel Caine

My thoughts:

I liked this book featuring Weather Warden Joanne Baldwin who faces the daunting task of saving the world while putting together her memories.

Date read: 9/18/2015
Series: Weather Warden, #6
Rating: 3*/5 = good
Genre: Urban Fantasy
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22. Girl in the Dark by Anna Lyndsey

My thoughts:

This is a fascinating book about a woman coping with a mysterious ailment leaving her in the dark for most of the day. I liked how she described her condition, her relationships, and how she sometimes was able to tolerate very low levels of light.

Date read: 9/30/2015
Rating: 3*/5 = good
Genre: Memoir
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Firestorm by Rachel Caine

First sentence:

"I was thinking that the Wardens needed a new motto."

Description:

Rogue Weather Warden Joanne Baldwin is racing to New York to warn her former colleagues of the impending apocalypse. An ancient agreement between the Djinn and the Wardens has been broken, and the furious Djinn, slaves to the wardens for millennia, have broken free of mortal control.

With more than half the Wardens unaccounted for in the wake of the Djinn uprising, Joanne realizes that the natural disasters they've combated for so long were merely symptoms of restless Mother Nature fidgeting in her sleep. Now's she's waking up--and she is angry..." -- from the back cover

My thoughts:

I enjoyed this entry in the Weather Warden series. I liked how Weather Warden Joanne Baldwin worked to alert her colleagues of the dangerous collapse in the Warden-Djinn relations. I look forward to reading the next book, Thin Air.

Date read: 8/25/2015

Book #: 23

Series: Weather Warden, #5

Rating: 3*/5 = good

Genre: Urban Fantasy

ISBN-10: 0451461045

ISBN-13: 9780451461049

Publisher: ROC

Year:2006

# of pages: 292

Binding: Mass Market Paperback

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Mermaid: A Memoir of Resilience by Eileen Cronin

First sentence:

"Along the oceanfront at dusk, my friends drag me past the fern bars and wet T-shirt contests to catch up to the aerobic pulse from the disco ahead ,which we call 'flashback' because-his flashing lights leave you with a psychedelic impression of dancing dots when you come back onto the street."

Description:

"At the age of three, Eileen Cronin first realized that only she did not have leg. Her boisterous Catholic family accepted her situation as 'God's Will,' treating her no differently than her ten siblings as she 'squiddled' through their 1960s Cincinnati home. But starting school, even wearing prosthetics, Cronin had to brave bullying and embarrassing questions. Thanks to her older brother's coaching, she handled a classmate's playground taunts with a smack from her lunchbox. As a teen, thrilled when boys asked her out, she was confused about what sexuality meant for her. She felt most comfortable and happiest relaxing and skinny dipping with her girlfriends, imaging herself ' an elusive mermaid.' The cause of her disability remained taboo, however, even as she looked toward the future and the possibility of her own family.

In later years, as her mother battled mental illness and denied having taken the drug thalidomide--known--to cause birth defects--Cronin felt apart from her family. After the death of a lose brother, she turned to alcohol. Eventually, however, she found the strength to set out on her own, volunteering at hospitals, and earning a PhD in clinical psychology.

Reflecting with humor and grace on her youth, search for love, and quest for answers, Cronin spins a shimmering story of self discovery and transformation." -- from the inside flap

My thoughts:

I liked this book about growing up strong despite having missing limbs due to thalidomide. Cronin doesn't let anything get in her way and her determination to live her life fully is an inspiration.

Date read: 8/23/2015
Book #:22
Rating: 3*/5 = good
Genre: Memoir

ISBN-10: 0393089010
ISBN-13: 9780393089011
Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.
Year: 2014
# of pages: 334
Binding: Hardcover
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I was Amelia Earhardt by Jane Mendelsohn

First sentence:

"The sky is flesh."

Description:

"In this brilliantly imagined novel, Amelia Earhart tells us what happened after she and her navigator, Fred Noonan, disappeared off the coast of New Guinea one glorious, windy day in 1937. And she tells us about herself.

There is her love affair with flying ("The sky is flesh") . . . .

There are her memories of the past: her childhood desire to become a heroine ("Heroines did what they wanted") . . . her marriage to G.P. Putnam, who promoted her to fame, but was willing to gamble her life so that the book she was writing about her round-the-world flight would sell out before Christmas.

There is the flight itself -- day after magnificent or perilous or exhilarating or terrifying day ("Noonan once said any fool could have seen I was risking my life but not living it").

And there is, miraculously, an island ("We named it Heaven, as a kind of joke").

And, most important, there is Noonan . . ." -- from the publisher

My thoughts:

This was an interesting book of the possible life of Amelia Earhart after she disappeared flying over the Pacific Ocean.

Date read: 8/21/2015
Book #: 21
Genre: Fiction
Rating: 3*/5 = good

ISBN-10: 0679776362
ISBN-13: 9780679776369
Publisher: Vintage 
Year: 1997
Binding: Trade Paperback
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Windfall by Rachel Caine

First sentence:

"It doesn't take much to destroy the world as humans know it."

Description:

"Leaving Las Vegas seemed like a great idea to Joanne Baldwin. But there is no escaping her past -- and there is no time to recharge. The former Weather Warden's powers are at an all-time low just as the clouds of war are gathering -- and the biggest storm since Atlantis's destruction is heading for landfall.

Joanne is exhausted. When not donning a rain mac and camping it up for the camera as a TV weather girl, she has to contend with a vengeful cop on her tail, her newly divorced sister moving in and getting caught in the middle of a supernatural civil war. Worst of all, her boyfriend in a bottle can't stop draining her powers and is fast morphing from the Djinn of her dreams to the Ifrit of her nightmares.

As the agreement between the Wardens and the Djinn starts to self-destruct, Joanne finds herself forced to choose between saving her lover, saving her Warden abilities. . .and saving humanity." -- from the back cover

My thoughts:

I enjoyed this book featuring Weather Warden Joanne Baldwin as she negotiates her work and life among the Wardens and the Djinn. I look forward to reading the next book in the series, Firestorm.

Date read: 8/14/2015
Book #: 20
Series: Weather Warden, #4
Genre: Urban Fantasy

ISBN-10: 0749079290
ISBN-13: 9780749079291
Publisher: Roc
Year: 2005
# of pages: 496
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
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Tell by Frances Itani

First sentence:

"Zel glances around the room: oak floor, oak desk, wooden cabinet, two windows that look down over city streets three storeys below."

Description:

From internationally bestselling author Frances Itani comes Tell, the breathtaking follow-up to Itani's award-winning debut Deafening, which launched the story of Grania, deaf from the age of five, and her sister, Tress, who helped to create their secret language.

Now it's 1919, only months after the signing of the Treaty of Versailles and the end of the Great War, and the men and women of Desoronto struggle to recover from wounds of the past. Attempting to adjust to the trauma that has overwhelmed her husband and altered their marriage, Tress seeks advice from her Aunt Maggie. But Maggie and her husband, Am, who cares for the town clock tower, have sorrows of their own, heartbreaks that lie unacknowledged between them.

While Am's unease increases, Maggie finds joy in her friendship with Zell, an eccentric widow who runs the local boarding house, and in the choral society started by a musician who has arrived in town from an unspoken part of war-torn Europe. Am seeks out Kenan, and the two offer each other comfort, often sitting together in silence. Meanwhile, Maggie reconnects with the music of her past, rediscovering a part of herself that had long ago been set aside. As the decade draws to a close and the lives of these characters become more entwined, each must decide what to share and what to hide, and how their actions will lead them in the future.

Written with Itani's signature power and grace, Tell is both a deeply moving story about the burdens of the past, and a beautifully rendered reminder of how the secrets we bury to protect ourselves can also be the cause of our undoing. This is a stunning achievement from one of our finest writers." -- from the inside flap

My thoughts:

I enjoyed this sequel to Itani's book Deafening. Taking place after World War 1, the book brings to front the struggles of families dealing with men home from Europe with wounds, physical and mental.

Date read: 8/12/2015
Book #: 19
Rating: 3*/5 = good
Genre: Historical Fiction

ISBN-10: 0802123368
ISBN-13: 9780802123367
Publisher: HarperCollins
Year: 2014
# of pages: 318
Binding: Trade Paperback
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The Care and Management of Lies by Jacqueline Winspear

First sentence:

"The country was in the early weeks of a summer that would become memorable for its warmth, and despite worries farther afield, there was a sense of being cocooned in Englishness."

Description:

"By July 1914, the ties between Kezia Marchant and Thea Brissenden, friends since girlhood, have become strained--by Thea's passionate embrace of women's suffrage, and by the imminent marriage of Kezia to Thea's brother, Tom, who runs the family farm. When Kezia and Tom wed just a month before war is declared between Britain and Germany, Thea's gift to Kezia is a book on household management--a veiled criticism of the bride's prosaic life to come. Yet when Tom enlists to fight for his country and Thea is drawn reluctantly onto the battlefield, the farm becomes Kezia's responsibility. Each must find a way to endure the ensuing cataclysm and turmoil.

As Tom marches to the front lines, and Kezia battles to keep her ordered life from unraveling, they hide their despair in letters and cards filled with stories woven to bring comfort. Even Tom's fellow soldiers in the trenches enter and find solace in the dream world of Kezia's mouth-watering, albeit imaginary meals. But will well-intended lies and self-deception be of use when they come face to face with the enemy?

The Care and Management of Lies paints a poignant picture of love and friendship strained by the pain of separation and the brutal chaos of battle. Ultimately, it raises profound questions about conflict, belief, and love that echo in our own time." -- from the inside flap

My thoughts:

This was a good book about World War I, describing conditions both on the battlefield and at home.

Date read: 8/11/2015
Book #: 18
Rating: 3*/5
Genre: Historical Fiction

ISBN-10: 0062220500
ISBN-13: 9780062220509
Publisher: HarperCollins
Year: 2014
# of pages: 319
Binding: Hardcover
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Memory Book by Howard Engel

First sentence:

"The train was putting on speed."

Description:

"Private detective Benny Cooperman becomes his own client in a most puzzling investigation. Benny awakes in the hospital recovering from a serious blow to the head, with a condition called alexia sine agraphia; in layman's terms, he can write but he cannot read. And his memory has been affected too; although he can quote lines from his high-school production of Twelfth Night, he finds himself brushing his teeth with his shaving cream. Even his girlfriend's name, Anna Abraham, eludes him.

But when Benny realizes that he was found unconscious beside a dead woman, he figures he must have been close to solving a case. With Anna working as a field agent, and two cops reluctantly sharing their discoveries, Benny pieces together the events that led to a murder -- and his own injuries." -- from the back cover

My thoughts:

I enjoyed this mystery featuring Benny Cooperman. I picked this book to read after Engel's memoir, The Man Who Forgot How to Read, as the main character also developed the same condition, albeit under different circumstances (head injury (Cooperman) vs stroke (Engel)).  I liked how Engel had Cooperman not just struggle with reading and memory but also try to figure out why he was attacked and who did it. I look forward to reading other books in this series.

Date read: 8/5/2015
Book #: 17
Series: Benny Cooperman, #11
Rating: 3*/5 = good
Genre: Mystery

ISBN-10: 0786717173
ISBN-13: 9780786717170
Publisher: Caroll & Graf
Year: 2006
# of pages: 236
Binding: Trade Paperback
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The Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt by Caroline Preston

First sentence:

"How this story begins. . ."

Description:

"For her graduation from high school in 1920, Frankie Pratt receives a scrapbook and her father's old Corona typewriter. Despite Frankie's dreams of becoming a writer, she must forgo a college scholarship to help her widowed mother. But when a mysterious Captain James seeps her off her feet, her mother finds a way to protect Frankie from the less-than-noble intentions of her unsuitable beau.

Through a kaleidoscopic array of vintage postcards, letters, magazine ads, ticket stubs, catalog pages, fabric spreads, menus, and more, we meet and follow Frankie on her journey in search of success and love. Once at Vassar, Frankie crosses paths with intellectuals and writers, among them 'Vincent' (alumna Edna St. Vincent Millay), who encourages Frankie to move to Greenwich Village and pursue her writing. When heartbreak finds her in New York, she sets off for Paris aboard the S.S. Mauritania, where she keeps company with two exiled Russian princes and a 'spinster adventuress' who is paying her way across the Atlantic with her unused trousseau. In Paris, Frankie takes a garret apartment above Shakespeare & Company, the hub of expat life, only to have a certain ne'er-do-well captain from her past reappear. But when a family crisis compels Frankie to return to her small New England hometown, she finds exactly what she had been looking for all along.

Author of the New York Times Notable Book Jackie by Josie, Carolyn Preston pulls from her extraordinary collection of vintage ephemera to create the first-ever scrapbook novel, transporting us back to the vibrant, burgeoning bohemian culture of the 1920s and introducing us to an unforgettable heroine, the spirited, ambitious, and lovely Frankie Pratt." -- from the inside flap.

My thoughts

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I especially loved the use of images of vintage memorabilia to supplement the text such as maps, ticket stubs and advertisements.

Date read: 7/23/2015
Book #: 16
Rating: 4*/5 = great
Genre: Historical Fiction

ISBN-10: 006196690?
ISBN-13: 9780061966903
Publisher: Ecco
Year: 2011
# of pages: 228
Binding: Hardcover
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The Man Who Forgot How to Read by Howard Engel

First sentence:

"My name is Howard Engel."

Description:

"One hot midsummer morning, novelist Howard Engel picked up his newspaper from his front step and discovered he could make no sense of it. The letters had mysteriously jumbled themselves into something that looked like Cyrillic one moment and Korean the next. While he slept, Engel ahd experienced a stroke and now suffered from a rare condition called alexia sine agraphia, meaning that while he could still write, he could no longer read.

Over the next several weeks in hospital and in rehabilitation, Engel discovered that much more was affected than his ability to read. His memory failed him, and even the names of old friends escaped his tongue. At first geography eluded him: he would know that two streets met somewhere in the city, but he couldn't imagine where. Apples and grapefruit now looked the same. When he returned home, he ahd trouble remembering where things went and would routinely find cans of tuna in the dishwasher and jars of pencils in the freezer.

Despite his disabilities, Engel prepared to face his dilemma. He contacted renowned neurologist Dr. Oliver Sacks for advice and visited him in New York City, forging a lasting friendship. He bravely learned to read again. And in the face of tremendous obstacles, he triumphed in writing a new novel.

An absorbing and uplifting story, filled with sly wit and candid insights, The Man Who Forgot How to Read will appeal to anyone fascinated by the mysteries of the mind, on and off the page." -- from the inside flap


My thoughts:

A few years ago, I saw a cartoon from WNYC's Radiolab about Harold Engel, a Canadian mystery novelist, who had a stroke and developed the rare condition alexia sine agraphia. He became unable to read, though he could still write. This was a fascinating book about the Engel's ability to adapt and to find new ways to read.

Date read: 7/23/2015
Book #: 15
Rating: 3*/5 = good
Genre: Memoir

ISBN-10: 031238209X
ISBN-13: 9780312382094
Publisher: St Martin's Press
Year: 2007
# of pages: 147
Binding: Hardcover
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Deafening by Frances Itani

First sentences:

"1902.
'Your name,' Mama says. 'This is the important word. If you can say your name, you can tell the world who you are.'"

Description:

Elegantly written and profoundly moving, Frances Itani's debut novel, Deafening, is a tale of virtuosity and power, set on the eve of the Great War and spanning two continents and the life and loves of a young deaf woman in Canada named Grania O'Neill.

At the age of Five, Grania -- the daughter of hardworking Irish hoteliers in smalltown Ontario-- emerges from a bout of scarlet fever profoundly deaf and is suddenly sealed off from the world that was just beginning to open for her. Her guilt-plagued mother cannot accept her daughter's deafness. Grania's saving grace is her grandmother Mamo, who tries to teach Grania to read and speak again. Grania's older sister, Tress, is a beloved ally as well -- obliging when Grania begs her to shout words into her ear canals and forging a rope to keep the sisters connected from their separate beds at night when Grania fears the terrible vulnerability that darkness brings. When it becomes clear that she can no longer thrive in the world of the hearing, her family sends her to live at the Ontario School for the Deaf in Belleville, where, protected from the often-unforgiving hearing world outside, she learns sign language and speech.

After graduation Grania stays on to work the school, and it is there that she meets Jim Lloyd, a hearing man. In wonderment the two begin to create a new emotional vocabulary that encompasses both sound and silence. But just two weeks after their wedding, Jim must leave home to serve as a stretcher bearer on the blood-soaked battlefields of Flanders. During this long war of attrition, Jim and Grania's letters back and forth -- both real and imagined -- attempt to sustain their young love in a world as brutal as it is beautiful.

Frances Itani's depiction of a world where sound exists only in the margins is a singular feat in literary fiction, a place difficult to leave and even harder to forget. A magnificent tale of love and war, Deafening is finally an ode to language -- how it can console, imprison, and liberate, and how it alone can bridge vast chasms of geography and experience." -- from the inside flap

My thoughts:

This is a very moving and thought-provoking book about deafness and the importance of listening in many different ways during the years up to and including the first World War. I know I really like a book when I wish I could meet the characters in real life, and I would love to meet Grania and Lloyd.


Book #: 14
Date read: 7/6/2015
Rating: 4*/5 = great
Genre: Historical Fiction

ISBN-10: 0871139022
ISBN-13:
Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press
Year: 2003
# of pages: 378
Binding: Hardcover
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Ghost Train to New Orleans by Mur Lafferty

First sentence:

"Zoë Norris would have rather had a root canal than conduct this interview for a new writer."

Description:

"Zoë Norris writes travel guides for the undead. And she's good at it too -- her newfound ability to talk to cities seems to help. After the success of The Shambling Guide to New York City, Zoe and her team are sent to New Orleans to write the sequel.

Work isn't all that brings Zoë to the Big Easy. The only person who can save her boyfriend from zombism is rumored to live in the city's swamps, but Zoë's out of her element in the wilderness. With her supernatural colleagues waiting to see her fail, and rumors of a new threat hunting citytalkers, can Zoë stay alive along enough to finish her next book?" -- from the back cover

My thoughts:

I enjoyed this sequel to The Shambling Guide to New York City. I especially liked the Ghost Train with the ghost train robbers on horses galloping along beside it!

Date read:  7/1/2015
Book #: 13
Series: Shambling Guide, #2
Rating: 3*/5 = good
Genre: Urban Fantasy

ISBN-10: 0316221147
ISBN-13: 9780316221146
Publisher: Orbit
Year: 2014
# of pages: 320
Binding: Trade Paperback
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The Shambling Guide to New York City by Mur Lafferty

First sentence:

"The bookstore was sandwiched between a dry cleaner's and a shifty-looking accounting office."

Description:

"Because of the disaster that was her last job, Zoe is searching for a fresh start as a travel book editor in the tourist-centric New York City. After stumbling across a seemingly perfect position though, Zoe is blocked at every turn because of the one thing she can't take off her resume --- human.

Not to be put off by anything -- especially not her blood drinking boss or death goddess coworker -- Zoe delves deep into the monster world. But her job turns deadly when the careful balance between human and monsters starts to crumble -- with Zoe right in the middle." -- from the back cover

My thoughts:

I enjoyed this travel guide to the hidden areas of New York City that monsters need to know about. After reading it, I don't think about places like the Statue of Liberty or the subway quite the same way!. I look forward to reading the next book, Ghost Train to New Orleans.

Date read: 6/24/2015
Book #: 13
Series: Shambling Guides, #1
Rating: 4*/5 = great
Genre: Urban Fantasy

ISBN-10: 0316221171
ISBN-13: 9780316221177
Publisher: Orbit
Year: 2013
# of pages: 339
Binding: Trade Papeback
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The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles

First sentence:

"He awoke, opened his eyes."

Description:

The Sheltering Sky is a trade mark of twentieth century literature. In this intensely fascinating story, Paul Bowles examines the ways in which Americans' incomprehension of alien cultures leads to the ultimate destruction of these cultures.

A story about three Americans travelers adrift in the cities and deserts of North Africa after World War II, The Sheltering Sky explores the limits of humanity when it touches the unfathomable emptiness and impassive cruelty of the desert." -- from the inside flap

My thoughts:

I found this a compelling book about relationships in a harsh environment. I liked the characters' interaction with each other and the world they're in.

Date read:  6/23/2015
Book #: 12
Rating: 3*/5 = good
Genre: Fiction

ISBN-10: 006083482X
ISBN-13: 9780060834821
Publisher: HarperCollins
Year: 1949 (original); 2000 (this edition)
# of pages: 313
Binding: Trade Paperback
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Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie

First sentence:

"The village headman, a man about fifty.."

Description:

"In this enchanting tale about the magic of reading and the wonder of romantic awakening, two hapless city boys are exiled to a remote mountain village for reeducation during China's infamous Cultural Revolution. There they meet the daughter of the local tailor and discover a hidden stash of Western classics in Chinese translation. As they flirt with the seamstress and secretly devour these banned works, they find transit from their grim surroundings to worlds they never imagined." -- from the back cover

My thoughts:

I liked this book about young Chinese men who learn about life and love during China's Cultural Revolution.

Date read: 6/10/2015
Book #: 11
Genre: Fiction
Rating: 3*/5 = good

ISBN-10: 0385722206
ISBN-13: 9780385722209
Publisher: Anchor
Year: 2002
# of pages: 184
Binding: Trade Paperback
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May 2015: Sea of Glory; The Last Hot Time; Gray Mountain

8. Sea of Glory: America's Voyage of Discovery, The U.S. Exploring Expedition, 1838-1842 by Nathaniel Philbrick

My thoughts:

I liked this book about the U.S. Exploring Expedition. Philbrick's prose nicely details both the discoveries and the people involved.

Date read: 5/15/2015
Rating: 3*/5 = good
Genre: History
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9.  The Last Hot Time by John M. Ford

My thoughts:

I liked this fantasy of a man who crosses worlds to become a doctor for otherworldly characters.

Date read:  5/21/2015
Rating: 3*/5 = good
Genre: Fantasy
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10. Gray Mountain by John Grisham

My thoughts:

I liked this book about a lawyer who enters a new world and discovers she can make a difference in people's lives.

Date read: 5/27/2015
Rating: 3*/5 = good
Genre: Fiction
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Murder at the National Gallery of Art by Margaret Truman

First sentence:

"Who was Mattia Preti anyway?"


Description:

"What happens when a world-class art expert wants not only to exhibit a long-lost painting by Caravaggio but also to own it?

Margaret Truman takes us into a heady exciting world of genius with this story of a senior curator at the nation's famed National Gallery of Art who plans a brilliant exhibition around the masterpiece. He also begins to make a more personal and daring plan. His masterly scheme promises prestige, fame, a small fortune, plus a number of artful deceptions and a disappearing act that will rival the story of the painting itself.

But circumstances intervene in the form of a demanding son, a more demanding and ambitious mistress, an unscrupulous collector, persons suddenly dead, and the fact that Annabel Reed-Smith is asked by her ex-college roommate, now the vice president's wife, to keep an eye on things at the Gallery and the coming exhibition." -- from Amazon.com

My thoughts:

I like this mystery set in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC and in Italy.  There were a lot of twists that kept me guessing throughout the book.

Date read: 4/11/2015
Book #:7
Series: Capitol Crimes, #13
Rating: 3*/5 = good
Genre: Mystery

ISBN-10: 0449219380
ISBN-13: 978-0449219386
Publisher: Fawcett
Year: 1997
# of pages: 386
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
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Call the Midwife: Shadows of the Workhouse by Jennifer Worth

First sentence:

"Nonnatus House was both a convent and the working base for the nursing and midwifery services of the Sisters of St Raymund Nonnatus."

Description:

When twenty-two-year-old Jennifer Worth, from a comfortable middle-class upbringing, went to work as a midwife in the direst section of postwar London, she not only delivered hundreds of babies and touched many lives, she also became the neighborhood's most vivid chronicler. Woven into the ongoing tales of her life in the East End are the true stories of the people Worth met who grew up in the dreaded workhouse, a Dickensian institution that limped on into the middle of the twentieth century.

Orphaned brother and sister Peggy and Frank lived in the workhouse until Frank got free and returned to rescue his sister. Bubbly Jane's spirit was broken by the cruelty of the workhouse master until she found kindness and romance years later at Nonnatus House. Mr. Collett, a Boer War veteran, lost his family in the two world wars and died in the workhouse.

Though these are stories of unimaginable hardship, what shines through each is the resilience of the human spirit and the strength, courage, and humor of people determined to build a future for themselves against the odds. This is an enduring work of literary nonfiction, at once a warmhearted coming-of-age story and a startling look at people's lives in the poorest section of postwar London." -- from the back cover

My thoughts:

I liked the second book in the Midwife Trilogy series. I especially liked how Jennifer learned to look past the conditions to engage with the people directly. I'm looking forward to reading the third book, Farewell to the East End.

Date read: 4/3/2015
Book #: 6
Series: Call the Midwife #2
Rating: 3*/5 = good
Genre: Memoir/History

ISBN-10: 0062270044
ISBN-13: 9780062270047
Publisher: HarperCollins
Year: 2005
# of pages: 293
Binding: Trade Paperback
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Mr. Darwin's Shooter by Roger McDonald

First sentence:

"The day was hot and dusty with scattered leaves of poplars lining a towpath."

Description:

"In this richly detailed novel based on the life of Syms Covington, Charles Darwin's hard-working shipboard assistant and later his house-servant, Roger McDonald shines a light on a man forgotten by history, capturing the breathtaking excitement of the historic voyage of the Beagle and brilliantly illuminating the scientific, religious, and social controversies that exploded around Darwin's watershed theories.

As "Darwin's shooter," Covington collected and preserved invaluable specimens; as the scientist's clerk in London, was he the first man to grasp the full import of their research--the seeds of Darwin's theory of natural selection? Twenty years later, Covington awaits his copy of The Origin of Species with mixed emotions. Embittered by Darwin's failure to acknowledge him, he is also profoundly troubled by his own role in the discoveries that subverted sacred doctrines and shook the Victorian worldview to its very foundation." -- Amazon.com
 
My thoughts:

I liked this account of Syms Covington, an English sailor, who became Darwin's assistant during the voyage of the Beagle. Through his writing, McDonald illustrates well the times and beliefs of mid-18th century England and Australia.

Date read: 3/26/2015
Book #: 5
Rating: 3*/5 = good
Genre: Historical Fiction

ISBN-10: 0802143563
ISBN-13: 9780802143563
Publisher: Grove Press
Year: 2008
# of pages: 364
Binding: Trade Paperback
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Call the Midwife by Jennifer Worth

First sentence:

"Nonnatus House was situated in the heart of the London Docklands."

Description:

"At the age of twenty-two, Jennifer Worth leaves her comfortable home to move into a convent and become a midwife in postwar London's East End slums. The colorful characters she meets while delivering babies...from the plucky warmhearted nuns with whom she lives, to the woman with twenty-four children, to the prostitutes and dockers of the city's seedier side...illuminate a fascinating time in history." -- LibraryThing.com member description

My thoughts:

I enjoyed this memoir about working as a midwife in the East End of London in the 1950s. Worth's description of the people she met and worked with brought the period to life. I look forward to reading the next book in the series, Call the Midwife: Shadows of the Workhouse.

Date read: 3/15/2015
Book # 4
Series: Midwife Trilogy, #1
Rating: 3*/5 = good
Genre: Memoir/History

ISBN-10: 0143123254
ISBN-13: 9780143123255
Publisher: Penguin
Year: 2012
# of pages: 352
Binding: Trade Paperback
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One Summer: America, 1927 by Bill Bryson

First sentence:

"On a warm spring evening just before Easter 1927, people who lived in tall buildings in New York were given pause when the wooden scaffolding around the tower of the brand new Sherry-Netherland Apartment Hotel caught fire and it became evident that the city's firemen lacked any means to get water to such a height."


Description:

"In One Summer Bill Bryson, one of our greatest and most beloved nonfiction writers, transports readers on a journey back to one amazing season in American life.

The summer of 1927 began with one of the signature events of the twentieth century: on May 21, 1927, Charles Lindbergh became the first man to cross the Atlantic by plane nonstop, and when he landed in Le Bourget airfield near Paris, he ignited an explosion of worldwide rapture and instantly became the most famous person on the planet. Meanwhile, the titanically talented Babe Ruth was beginning his assault on the home run record, which would culminate on September 30 with his sixtieth blast, one of the most resonant and durable records in sports history. In between those dates a Queens housewife named Ruth Snyder and her corset-salesman lover garroted her husband, leading to a murder trial that became a huge tabloid sensation. Alvin “Shipwreck” Kelly sat atop a flagpole in Newark, New Jersey, for twelve days—a new record. The American South was clobbered by unprecedented rain and by flooding of the Mississippi basin, a great human disaster, the relief efforts for which were guided by the uncannily able and insufferably pompous Herbert Hoover. Calvin Coolidge interrupted an already leisurely presidency for an even more relaxing three-month vacation in the Black Hills of South Dakota. The gangster Al Capone tightened his grip on the illegal booze business through a gaudy and murderous reign of terror and municipal corruption. The first true “talking picture,” Al Jolson’s The Jazz Singer, was filmed and forever changed the motion picture industry. The four most powerful central bankers on earth met in secret session on a Long Island estate and made a fateful decision that virtually guaranteed a future crash and depression.
    
All this and much, much more transpired in that epochal summer of 1927, and Bill Bryson captures its outsized personalities, exciting events, and occasional just plain weirdness with his trademark vividness, eye for telling detail, and delicious humor. In that year America stepped out onto the world stage as the main event, and One Summer transforms it all into narrative nonfiction of the highest order." -- Amazon.com
 
My thoughts:

This is a very good book focusing on one summer in American history. I liked learning about Lindbergh's transatlantic trip to France and other pilots in this era, Babe Ruth and his setting a new home run record, and other events and people of the time.

Date read: 2/23/2015
Book #: 3
Rating: 3*/5 = good
Genre: History

ISBN-10: 0767919408
ISBN-13: 9780767919401
Publisher: Doubleday
Year: 2013
# of pages: 509
Binding: Hardcover
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Son of a Witch by Gregory Maguire

First sentence:

"So the talk of random brutality wasn't just talk."

Description:

"Ten years after the publication of Wicked, beloved novelist Gregory Maguire returns at last to the land of Oz. There he introduces us to Liir, an adolescent boy last seen hiding in the shadows of the castle after Dorothy did in the Witch. Bruised, comatose, and left for dead in a gully, Liir is shattered in spirit as well as in form. But he is tended at the Cloister of Saint Glinda by the silent novice called Candle, who wills him back to life with her musical gifts.

What dark force left Liir in this condition? Is he really Elphaba's son? He has her broom and her cape -- but what of her powers? Can he find his supposed half-sister, Nor, last seen in the forbidding prison, Southstairs? Can he fulfill the last wishes of a dying princess? In an Oz that, since the Wizard's departure, is under new and dangerous management, can Liir keep his head down long enough to grow up?

For the countless fans who have been dazzled and entranced by Maguire's Oz, Son of a Witch is the rich reward they have awaited so long." - Amazon.com

My thoughts:

I liked this second book in The Wicked Years series. Liir is an interesting character and I liked his interactions with Candle and Glinda as he learns about who he is.  I look forward to reading the next book in the series, A Lion Among Men.

Date read: 2/16/2015
Book #: 2
Series: The Wicked Years, #2
Rating: 3*/5 = good
Genre: Fantasy

ISBN-10: 0060747226
ISBN-13:  9780060747220
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Year: 2006
# of pages: 352
Binding: Trade Paperback
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The Bradbury Chronicles: The Life of Ray Bradbury by Sam Weller

First sentence:

"I remember the day I was born."

Description:

"Accomplished journalist Sam Weller met the Ray Bradbury while writing a cover story for the Chicago Tribune Magazine and spent hundreds of hours interviewing Bradbury, his editors, family members, and longtime friends. With unprecedented access to private archives, he uncovered never–before–published letters, documents, and photographs that help tell the story of this literary genius and his remarkable creative journey. The result is a richly textured, detailed biography that illuminates the origins and accomplishments of Bradbury's fascinating mind." -- Amazon.com

My thoughts:

I enjoyed this extensive biography of Ray Bradbury as I not only learned about his life, I also learned how his short stories and books were born.

Date read: 2/14/2015
Book #: 1
Rating: 3*/5 = good
Genre: Biography

ISBN-10: 0060545844
ISBN-13: 9780060545840
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Year: 2006 (Reprint)
# of pages: 432
Binding: Trade Paperback
LibraryThing page