Triangle by Katharine Weber

First sentence:

"This is what happened."

Description:

"By the time she dies at age 106, Esther Gottesfeld, the last survivor of the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist fire, has told the story of that days many times. But her own role remains mysterious: How did she survive when at least 146 workers, her sister and fiancé among them, burned or jumped to their deaths? Are the gaps in her story just common mistakes, or has she deliberately concealed a secret over the years? As her granddaughter seeks the real story in the present day, a zealous feminist historian intrudes with her own set of conclusions, but it is Esther's voice echoing insistently through the decades that ultimately reveals the meaning of the tragedy.

A brilliant, haunting chronicle of the event that stood for ninety years as New York's most violent disaster, Triangle forces us to consider how we tell our stories, how we hear them, and how history is forged from unverifiable truths." -- from the back cover

My thoughts:

This was a very good book about people and their stories. The ones they tell, and the ones told about them. I liked Esther's interactions with the interviewer as well as her granddaughter's friend George Bostwick composing music based on DNA.

Date read: 12/29/2012
Book #: 43
Challenge: Off the Shelf Challenge 2012
Rating: 3*/5 = good
Genre: Fiction

ISBN-10: 0312426143
ISBN-13: 9780312426149
Publisher: Picador
Year: 2006
# of pages: 242
Binding: Trade Paperback
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Serpent's Reach by C.J. Cherryh

First sentence:

"If it was anywhere possible to be a child in the Family, it was possible at Kethiuy, on Cerdin."

Description:

"The constellation of Hydri, known as the Serpent, is compact and obscure from Earth and remained so in the era of interstellar colonization. For it was under strict quarantine--harboring an intelligent race, powerful and alien. Yet there were human colonies within the Serpent's Reach, cut off from the galaxy beyond, with their own inbred culture, and their special relationships to the inhuman majat.

This is the novel of Raen, the last of the massacred Sul Family, and of her lifetime pledge to find vengeance. It was to take her across the worlds of the Reach into the very center of the alien webwork that knit the forbidden constellation into a complex of interbred cultures that no outsider could hope to unravel." -- from the back cover

My thoughts:

I liked this book set in a rich and complicated universe. I especially liked the way the majat are portrayed and how Raen interacts with them.

Date read: 12/9/2012
Book #: 42
Series: Alliance-Union Universe, #13
Challenge: Off the Shelf Challenge 2012
Rating: 3*/5 = good
Genre: SF

ISBN-10: 0886770882
ISBN-13: 9780886770884
Publisher: DAW
Year:\1980
# of pages: 285
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
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New Author Challenge 2012!

What: Read authors who are new to me

When: January 1 - December 31, 2012

Hosted at Literary Escapism

 
My goal: 15 new authors

1. Robert C. Fleet. Last Mountain -- finished 1/31/2012
2. Lev Grossman. Codex -- finished 2/3/2012
3. John Ramsey Miller. Upside Down -- finished 2/8/2012
4. Greg Iles. The Footprints of God -- finished 2/28/2012
5. Mo Hayder. Pig Island -- finished 3/19/2012
6. Jason F. Wright. The Wednesday Letters -- finished 3/28/2012
7. Patricia Wallace. Lullabye -- finished 3/31/2012
8. Carl Hiassen. Native Tongue -- finished 4/18/2012
9. Irene Nemirovsky. All Our Worldly Goods-- finished 4/23/2012
10. Trish MacDonald Skillman. Someone to Watch Over -- finished 4/25/2012
11. Dave Duncan. The Gilded Chain -- finished 5/16/2012
12. Tiziano Terzani. A Fortune-Teller Told Me -- finished 5/27/2012
13. Shalom Auslander. Hope: A Tragedy -- finished 7/15/2012
14. Mark Kurlansky. Salt: A World History -- finished 8/19/2012
15. Richard Castle. Heat Wave -- finished 8/22/2012
16. Karen Chance. Touch the Dark -- finished 8/29/2012
17. Aiden James. Plague of Coins -- finished 8/30/2012
18. Linda Gillard. Emotional Geology -- finished 9/15/2012
19. Keith R.A. DeCandido. The Xander Years, Volume 1 -- finished 9/17/2012
20. Elizabeth Strout. Olive Kittridge -- finished 10/20/2012
21. Jennifer Wilson. Running Away to Home -- finished 11/9/2012
22. Philip Caputo. The Voyage -- finished 11/15/2012
23. Elspeth Huxley. Murder at Government House -- finished 12/6/2013

Murder at Government House by Elspeth Huxley

First sentence:

"Mark Beaton was in that embittered mood that was apt to follow the nerve-racking preparations for a Government House dinner-party."

Description:

"Life in the colonial capital at Chania is relaxed and blooming, barring the odd hiccough in the regional railways, but Olivia Brandeis, a young anthropologist working in the region, senses that there is trouble brewing. When the Governor is found strangled at his desk, her suspicions are confirmed. Falicious rumors fly as Inspector Vachell tries to sort out conflictng accusations and find a real suspect. Then Olivia relates her encounter with a tribal witch doctor--and an even more terrifying series of events begins to unfold." -- from the back cover

My thoughts:

I liked this mystery set in Africa during the colonial period. I especially liked Vachell and Olivia working together to figure out who killed the Governor and why. I look forward to reading the next book in the series, Murder on Safari.

Date read: 12/6/2012
Book #:41
Series: Vachell, #1
Challenges: New Author Challenge 2012, Off the Shelf Challenge 2012 
Rating: 3*/5 = good
Genre: Mystery

ISBN-10: 0140112553
ISBN-13: 9780140112559
Publisher: Penguin
Year: 1937
# of pages: 231
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
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A to Z Challenge 2012

As described by the challenge host, Strawberry Splash Review, the A to Z Challenge 2012 has three possible choices:

"1. Author - A to Z by authors last name, 26 books.
2. Title - A to Z by book title, 26 books.
3. Double Whammy - Do both Challenge 1 and 2 for a total 52 books."

I will do #2: A to Z by book title


A: All Our Worldly Goods by Irene Nemirovsky -- finished 4/23/2012
B: Bad Monkeys by Matt Ruff -- finished 6/2/2012
C: Codex by Lev Grossman -- finished 2/3/2012
D: Dancing with Werewolves by Carole Nelson Douglas -- finished 1/3/2012
E: Emotional Geology by Linda Gillard -- finished 9/15/2012
F: The Footprints of God by Greg Iles -- finished 2/28/2012
G: Glass Soup by Jonathan Carroll -- finished 2/6/2012
H: Household Gods by Judith Tarr and Harry Turtledove -- finished 4/9/2012
I: Icon by Frederick Forsyth. -- finished 6/2/2012
J:
K:
L: Last Mountain by Robert C. Fleet -- finished 1/31/2012
M: The Monster of Florence by Douglas Preston and Mario Spezi -- finished 2/23/2012
N: Native Tongue by Carl Hiassen -- finished 4/18/2012
O: Olive Kittridge by Elizabeth Strout -- finished 10/20/2012 
P: People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks -- finished 1/23/2012
Q:
R: Real Murders by Charlaine Harris -- finished 8/14/2012
S: Sphere by Michael Crichton -- finished 3/29/2012
T: Trader to the Stars by Poul Anderson -- finished 7/23/2012
U: Upside Down by John Ramsey Miller -- finished 2/9/2012
V: The Voyage by Philip Caputo -- finished 11/15/2012
W: The Wednesday Letters by Jason F Wright -- finished 3/28/2012
X: The Xander Years, Vol. 1 by Keith R.A. DeCandido -- finished 9/18/2012
Y:
Z:

The Voyage by Philip Caputo

First sentence:

"The sea was gray that morning, and as smooth as the surface of an eye."

Description:

"On a June morning in 1901, Cyrus Braithwaite commands his three sons to set sail from their Maine home aboard the family's forty-six-foot schooner and not return until September. Though confused and hurt by their father's cold-blooded order, the three brothers soon rise to the occasion and embark on a breathtakingly perilous journey down the East Coast, headed for the Florida Keys.

Almost a hundred years later, Cyrus's great-granddaughter Sybil sets out to uncover the events that transpired on the voyage. Her discoveries about the Braithwaite family and the America they lived in unfolds into a stunning tale of intrigue, murder, lies, and deceit.

In the tradition of great seafaring adventures, The Voyage is an intricately plotted, superbly detailed, and gripping story of adenture and courage. Pulitzer Prize-winning author Philip Caputo has written a timeless novel about the dangerous, reerberating effects of long-held family secrets." -- from the back cover

My thoughts:

This is a very good book about adventure and family. I especially liked the brothers learning to work together in the storms.

Date read: 11/15/2012
Book #: 40
Challenges: A-Z Challenge 2012, New Author Challenge 2012, Off the Shelf Challenge 2012
Rating: 3*/5 = good
Genre: Fiction

ISBN-10: 0679768394
ISBN-13: 9780679768395
Publisher: Vintage Books
Year: 1999
# of pages: 416
Binding: Trade Paperback
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Running Away to Home by Jennifer Wilson

First sentence:

"Dawn had not yet broken as I wrestled my suitcase out of my room above the bar in Mrkopalj, a tiny Croatian village nestled in a low mountain range that looks like the Alps but with fewer people and more wild boars."

Description:

"'We can look at this in two ways,' Jim wrote, always the pragmatist. 'We can panic and scrap the whole idea. Or we can take this as a sign. They're saying the economy is going to get worse before it gets better. Maybe this is the kick in the pants we needed to do something completely different. There will always be an excuse not to go. . . .'

And that, friends, is how a typically sane middle-aged mother decided to drag her family back to a forlorn mountain village in the backwoods of Croatia.

So begins the author's journey in Running Away to Home. Jen, her architect husband Jim, and their two children had been living the typical soccer-and-ballet-practice life in the most Middle American of places: Des Moines, Iowa. They overindulged themselves and their kids, and as a family they were losing one another in the rush of work, school, and activities. One day, Jen and her husband looked at each other--both holding their Starbucks coffee as they headed out to their SUV in the mall parking lot, while the kids complained about the inferiority of the toys they just got--and asked themselves: 'Is this the American dream? Because if it is, it sort of sucks.'

Jim and Jen had always dreamed of taking a family sabbatical in another country, so when they lost half their savings in the stock-market crash, it seemed like just a crazy enough time to do it. High on wanderlust, they left the troubled landscape of contemporary America for the Croatian mountain village of Mrkopalj, the land of Jennifer's ancestors. It was a village that seemed hermetically sealed for the last one hundred years, with a population of eight hundred (mostly drunken) residents and a herd of sheep milling around the post office. For several months they lived like locals, from milking the neighbor's cows to eating roasted pig on a spit to desperately seeking the village recipe for bootleg liquor. As the Wilson-Hoff family struggled to stay sane (and warm), what they found was much deeper and bigger than themselves." -- from the inside flap

My thoughts:

I enjoyed this book of not only researching family history, but living in the ancestors' home village and meeting new relatives. I liked how Jen learned not to stand outside as an observer but instead participate in daily activities, thus making new and valued friends.

Date read: 11/9/2012
Book #: 39
Challenge: New Author Challenge
Rating: 3*/5 = good
Genre: Memoir

ISBN-10: 0312598955
ISBN-13: 9780312598952
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Year: 2011
# of pages: 317
Binding: Hardcover
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