The House at Sugar Beach by Helene Cooper

The House at Sugar Beach is Helene Cooper's memoir of her childhood in Liberia, Africa and continues through her college years in America and eventual American citizenship.

For whatever reason, I continue to be drawn to books with African cultures at the center. And this was no exception. I had absolutely no knowledge of Liberia going into this book. I found its history very interesting. Freed slaves from America were shipped back to this country to settle and start life again causing dissension between the people already inhabiting the area and the new settlers. The tension appeared to escalate in the late 1980's and 1990's causing great violence and civil war in the area.

Helene Cooper's family dates back to the original ship arriving with freed slaves. She grew up living in a mansion and having a grand life compared to people in the area. Often the wealthier families in Liberia would accept children from the "country" people or the native cultures into their homes and raise them as their own. This gave the children a better life than they would have otherwise. This is how Eunice came to live with the Coopers. She and Helene became sisters almost as if they were blood.

As the violence grew and her family was no longer safe (in fact her mother was raped), they moved to America and settled in the south. Unfortunately, Eunice was sent back to her family and did not travel to America. While Helene finished out her high school years and then college she would write letters to Eunice until they just lost touch. Helene went on to become a journalist working for the Wall Street Journal and other papers.

The House at Sugar Beach recounts all of these events in great detail. I found the book to be interesting, but to a point. I felt the first half about her childhood dragged a bit. I admit I skipped 100 pages (102-202) in the middle. And I don't feel like I really missed out on much except reading about the violence against her family. I actually prefer not to read that and was happy I could gleam what happened from tidbits later in the book. I enjoyed reading the second half more than the first. Overall, a mediocre read. Not sure what my book club will think about it. I anticipate it will be a DNF for many. Although, not the greatest book ever, I don't think it was a waste of my time. I did learn about a country and its history that I knew nothing about before. And that's never a waste of time! :-) And it was also interesting to read about a woman as strong as Helene Cooper.

Source disclosure: I borrowed this book from the library.

The Gardner Heist by Ulrich Boser

I wanted to read this book last year when I was participating in the Art History Reading Challenge. I first heard of the Gardner Heist ten years ago when I was in grad school for Museum Science. And then again when I took an online Forensics course through Barnes and Noble several years ago. They had this case as one of the examples to discuss how things could have been handled differently by the authorities.

For those who aren't familiar, nearly 20 years ago (the anniversary is actually March 18th this year) two men dressed as police officers banged on the security door of the Gardner Museum in Boston. The guards let the two men in and were tied up in the utility room while the men went about stealing (ripping/cutting paintings out of their frames and leaving the empty frames on the wall) about a dozen artworks from the museum. And then they just disappeared into the night. The paintings have yet to resurface anywhere in auctions or the underground art world.

Boser's book very thoroughly traces the history of the investigation from renowned art investigator Harold Smith all the way through his own obsession with trying to crack the case. And amazingly enough, this case is still open today with only theories and speculation left as to what happened to the artwork.

I found this book a bit tedious to get through, while it is VERY thorough, I feel like maybe just a tad bit too thorough. There are sooo many names and places and Boser comes back to the some of the names in later chapters. It was a little difficult for me to keep track of everyone. However, it was very interesting too! Quite an inside look into the art theft world and just the criminal world in general. Some of the people Smith thought could be behind the theft were scary individuals. It's pretty surreal for a naive Midwestern girl like me to fathom the reality of the mob world and that the characters you see on television and movies do exist in the real world. I mean, you know people like that exist in the real world, but to see their personalities laid out in a nonfiction book, just incredible. I like my little bubble of goodness I live in. :-)

If you like investigative reports or are particularly interested in art theft, this would be a great book for you. Otherwise, I suggest moving on.
Source disclosure: Borrowed this from the library.

Nonfiction Roundup

Always Looking Up: Adventures of an Incurable Optimist by Michael J. Fox: I'm not ordinarily a celebrity memoir reader, but this, Fox's second (after 2003's Lucky Man), just jumped out at me. It would be a good choice for a number of people: Fox's many fans, people affected by Parkinson's Disease, people interested in the stem cell debate and a look at the clash between politics and real people's lives, and people who are looking for a little inspiration. I found this book to be fascinating and inspirational. It focuses on the past ten years of Fox's life as he founded what would become the largest Parkinson's research foundation, struggled to control symptoms while making public appearances (including one which would prompt Rush Limbaugh to mock Fox's symptoms on television while insisting that he must be playing them up to get sympathy), revisiting the world of television in appearances on Scrubs and Boston Legal, and entering the political fight over stem cell research. I really enjoyed Fox's appearances on Scrubs and I knew at the time that he had PD, so I found his discussion of how difficult it was really interesting. I found the whole memoir difficult to put down, actually. The central theme is obviously optimism, and he organizes the book into the four pillars of his optimism: Family, Faith, Work, and Politics. He does not gloss over the horrors of Parkinson's and its medication, and that part is an eye-opening read in itself. Fox readily admits that he's luckier than your average Parkinson's patient, not only in his fame and financial situation, but in his family, but he uses this luck to improve the lives of Parkinson's patients everywhere, which is very inspiring.


The Green Beauty Guide by Julie Gabriel is a useful resource, but the organization is a disaster. I was very interested in learning how to "green" my beauty routine (which is pretty much just washing and moisturizing twice a day--hey, I have a toddler), and this book will help you do that. Eventually. I would have enjoyed a more positive tone, a "let's look at how easy and economical it is to make your own products for a fraction of the cost, or to change to gentler, greener products" attitude, but the first part of the book drags with negativity. Still, some of the information is good to know (for example, the complete lack of FDA oversight of the cosmetics industry is terrifying, and I had no idea they only investigate an ingredient if they receive numerous reports of problems), although this first section is very long and can be summed up as "the cosmetics industry only exists to sell you stuff, not care for your skin, and they use ingredients that are carcinogenic and have unknown health effects." Again, the information is helpful, but I think if you're cracking open a book called The Green Beauty Guide, you're already on board with using greener projects and you don't need the litany of complaints and the scare tactics she uses. She also goes on and on about the lies of the cosmetics industry, but then quotes extensively from "green" cosmetics industry people. Apparently, I'm supposed to believe that "green" means "not just intent on selling products," but I'm not buying it. They have an agenda, too, but it's one she doesn't mind overlooking.

Gabriel isn't a scientist or a doctor, but she cites many, many scientific papers to back up her claims. One of the problems with this approach is her inconsistency: in one chapter, she goes on and on about how animal studies don't reveal anything about a product to be used on humans (which I happen to agree with), but many of the studies she cites indicting particular chemicals as possible carcinogens are...wait for it...animal studies. So the research is fine when it serves her purpose, but not when it doesn't. The book is huge, unnecessarily packed with information, and the organization doesn't serve the reader. To compare to another nonfiction "how to" book: When I finished Mrs. Meyer's Guide to a Clean Home, I had an action plan and shopping list, plus checklists in the book to use as my reference. I finished The Green Beauty Guide and thought, "I have to go back through this whole giant book and make notes of the page numbers I actually need." It's organized by type of product (facial cleansers, toners, body moisturizers, etc.), which makes it hard to figure out what kind of regime you want to start as a newbie. That's why I need to flip back through and make a list of which products I want to buy and which I want to make, which page numbers have the recipes, etc. This book is just crying out for some kind of bulleted lists or checklists or something to make it user-friendly. All that said, there is good information here; it's just not easy to find. There are many simple recipes that sound fun and easy to make, and an "at-home facial" how-to sounds like a cheap but fabulous spa trip, a nice little indulgence that doesn't cost a fortune. Gabriel's favorite "green" skincare products are often very expensive, but she has some inexpensive alternatives. You'll want to check The Green Beauty Guide website for updates: the current entry is about potential danger from colloidal silver, which is used as a green/healthy preservative in her recipes in the book (and in the products in her own skincare line). Here, too, is a contradiction: she seems to dismiss the claims about colloidal silver based on the type of research resulting in the claims, while grudgingly concluding that she's eliminating it since the FDA banned it from OTC medications. However, this kind of research is EXACTLY what she relies on to indict common chemicals in the book! Not only that, she's all about "better safe than sorry" when recommending against a chemical that hasn't been definitely proven harmful, but when it's one of her natural darlings, she defends it as not proven harmful. It's an annoying inconsistency, but the recipes and discussion of skincare regime outweigh it. Barely.

Annie's Ghosts by Steve Luxenberg

Annie's Ghosts is an ambitious part memoir, part investigative journalism effort by veteran reporter Steve Luxenberg, who discovers a family secret he can't leave alone. Unlike the usual tell-all, emotionally driven memoirs on the market, Luxenberg's background makes this an impeccably researched, thoroughly engaging account based in facts. Brief passages summarizing relevant personal memories give the story a personal feel that isn't found in the average history book, but the focus of the book is on the untangling of lies from a factual perspective. Luxenberg decides to tell the extraordinary story with the timeline of his own research and revelations rather than attempting to fictionalize past events, and this gives his story immense credibility.

When Luxenberg's mother is ill, he hears a hint of her deepest secret: a woman who drives her to doctor's appointments calls to ask if his mother had had a sister--she mentioned something about a sister who had been institutionalized as a small child. Luxenberg responds that his mother has always talked about her life as an only child, and more or less forgets the exchange until evidence surfaces after his mother's death that there was, in fact, a sister named Annie. Luxenberg's investigative reporting instincts kick in, and with his siblings' blessings, he digs around a bit, to find that Annie not only existed, she wasn't institutionalized until his mother was in her twenties. How can this be possible, with his mother's frequent discussions of being an only child? He looks for photos, anything at all about Annie from his mother's childhood, and comes up empty. He begins to widen his search, interviewing relatives and securing medical records (no easy task in this patient-protective society), to discover the heartbreaking fate of Annie and to look for evidence that would explain why his mother had kept this secret. His investigation dips into the Holocaust, the treatment of mental health and disabilities throughout the 20th century, and the American immigrant experience in an utterly fascinating narrative.

I don't normally read nonfiction: I usually find it either too dry or too fictionalized, but in Annie's Ghosts, Luxenberg has created a tale perfectly balanced between the personal and factual. The story is riveting, and told with such sensitivity and scrupulous reporting that I highly recommend it, even to those who usually avoid nonfiction.

Available in hardcover May 5. Pre-order it here!

Spring Cleaning

In honor of the season, I requested review copies of Mrs. Meyer's Clean Home by Thelma Meyer and Throw Out Fifty Things by Gail Blanke, and Hachette Book Group was kind enough to indulge me. If you need inspiration for spring cleaning (and keeping it clean year-round), these are absolutely the books for you! I finished them on Thursday night and commenced the cleaning/purging Friday morning. In what is probably a record for me, I have not yet lost the motivation Blanke and Meyer lent me, and I seem to be infecting those around me with the need to spring clean.

Mrs. Meyer's Clean Home: No Nonsense Advice That Will Inspire You To Clean Like The Dickens by Thelma Meyer: This book is going to be a new automatic housewarming gift from me. Mrs. Meyer packs every page with valuable information, motivation, funny anecdotes, and handy tips. Somehow, even in the litany of cleaning tasks she teaches the reader to tackle, she doesn't make it seem like a daunting task to have a clean, pleasant home that makes you and your family feel happy. It helps that she's practical to the utmost. She raised nine children, and her standard of clean was not "immaculate," but rather, "livable." If you tend to get bogged down in trying to make everything perfectly clean, Mrs. Meyer will not only help you focus on organizing your attempts at cleaning and on doing something instead of nothing, she gives you the tools you need to do so. The book is organized by room (or area) of the house/yard, and includes a sample schedule of daily, weekly, monthly, and seasonal cleaning tasks. Attempting to follow this schedule is strangely freeing. Even if we miss a day's tasks, there's a make-up/rest day built in, and Mrs. Meyer is encouraging and inspiring. There is no sense that a level of perfection can be reached while people are actually living in and enjoying the home, but she makes the reader feel inspired to at least try. And those attempts make visible improvements. An "emergency" guide for making the house seem clean when company is on the way is as indispensable as the rest of the book. Mrs. Meyer is also frugal and environmentally conscious, so her cleaning methods are focused on that angle, which I thought was fantastic. Even better, these inexpensive, non-hazardous methods actually work, often better than the purchased harsh chemicals. I highly recommend this book to anyone who doesn't have a staff to keep the house clean and organized.

Throw Out Fifty Things: Clear The Clutter, Find Your Life by Gail Blanke: If you chuck useless items into a corner of the closet to deal with later, agonize over whether to donate that dress you bought five years ago with the intention of losing ten pounds, or feel overwhelmed by the clutter in your home, Gail Blanke will teach you the questions to ask yourself that will empower you to just let it go. You could certainly start decluttering after reading the first four words of the title, but many of us need a little more encouragement than that, not to mention a place to start. In a book helpfully organized by room/area, Blanke excels at repeating advice and guidelines in slightly varied ways that will reach different people. For me, the clear, bulleted lists at the end of each section were the most appealing, but others may prefer Blanke's motivational discussion and inspirational anecdotes. An invaluable resource guide at the end of the book lists donation/recycling/disposal ideas for many different items, from bicycles to computers, to old paint, to allow the reader to actually follow through on throwing out those fifty things. Why fifty? At that point, you'll begin to see a real difference and have the motivation to continue (and to prevent more useless items from even entering your home). More than half the book is "Clearing the Mental Clutter," a more self-help type of writing that will appeal to anyone looking to bring focus and purpose to more than just physical surroundings. I highly recommend this book to anyone looking to declutter who isn't sure where to start.

Wife in the North by Judith O'Reilly

Judith O'Reilly is very funny and insightful, and I was very excited to read this book. The premise sounded fantastic (city woman moves to Northumberland to fulfill her husband's dream), and I think I laughed out loud half a dozen times in the first couple dozen pages. The very first paragraph holds such promise. Wondering whether she could kill her husband and plead insanity, she concludes, "In truth, the only abuse I have ever suffered is his music collection and the fact he can only cook two meals--fish pasta and bacon and leek pasta. I am not sure that would be considered adequate grounds for murder. Particularly if the jury insisted on sampling them because they are really rather nice." The book is written in short diary entries, beginning with the family's move to the middle of nowhere with a four-year-old, a two-year-old, and seven-months-pregnant Judith convinced to try out country living.

There were lovely, poignant passages and very funny passages, and Judith really nails the highs and lows of being a parent. But after about 100 pages, it started to be a hard slog to keep going. I realized it was the short entries, lack of cohesion, and my inability to connect with other characters. Basically, the problem is that, though this is categorized as a memoir, it is actually a collection of blog entries. "Memoir" implies reflecting on one's past in a meaningful way, while this is like reading someone's summarized daily thoughts, which is good in small doses, but, like life, is repetitive, disjointed, and lacking a central story to move things along. I hadn't realized this was a blog-to-book, or I doubt I would have picked it up. The really frustrating thing is that I would have loved to read a real memoir by Judith. She's an excellent writer, really witty and sharp, and her insights are funny and moving.

I had difficulty identifying with anyone but Judith because she's given them all cutesy blog names to shield their identities (Yorkshire Mother, Oyster Farmer's Wife, Best Friend From School--even the kids start out as the four-year-old and two-year-old, progressing as needed to five-year-old and three-year-old, etc. The baby stays the baby) and their characters are not really developed. Her husband is a mystery to me. He drags the whole family up there, but continues to work in London, leaving Judith alone with the kids for three weeks at a time? I could not understand his motivation, or her capitulation, in light of those circumstances, and this was a real problem. When he gives her an out partway through, I could not identify with her not taking it after reading about her misery up to that point. As expected with a blog, there is a fair amount of self-indulgence and whining (yes, you miss London--I get it), but the lack of cohesion is really the biggest problem with this book. Is this what publishers are doing these days? Finding someone with an entertaining blog and reprinting entries so people will pay for what they can read for free? Count me out.

Save a tree. Save $14.95. Go read her blog at wifeinthenorth.com.

Bitter is the New Black by Jen Lancaster

The full title of this book is: Bitter is the New Black: Confessions of a Condescending, Egomaniacal, Self-Centered Smartass, Or, Why You Should Never Carry a Prada Bag into the Unemployment Office. It was our book club pick for June. We have yet to meet and discuss but several members had already read or started it at our last meeting and they overwhelming felt it was hysterical and a fun read.

This memoir describes about two years of Jen Lancaster's life in Chicago. We open with her in a Vice President position in business sales something or other. (I am sort of lost in the business world myself, since I was in the non-profit world when I did work outside the home.) She was young, cute, and very successful at her job, but ended up laid off after a corporate merger and 9/11. This left her VERY bitter. She tried for nearly 2 years to get a job with progressively less standards. She saw her opportunities, money and friends dwindle. She started a blog to entertain herself during the day (currently known as jennsylvania). Then her husband lost his job as well and they REALLY were in DIRE straits (according to her). She had to move to a non-penthouse apartment in a less desirable neighborhood, work for a temp agency (once). Eventually, her husband found a job and Lancaster tried her hand at writing (hence this book). They got back on their feet and there you have it.

Although, all of this sounds really depressing, it's not at all. Lancaster writes with a fun sarcastic tone and has absolutely no filter when it comes to anything. While her style of writing is entertaining, knowing this is a real person's life and that she actually thinks this way, annoyed me a little. I mean really, she was surprised when people looked at her Prada bag at the unemployment office and then rolled their eyes? Come on. Lancaster just seemed like such a snob to me. I think I would have thought this was more funny if I read it as a fiction book instead of constantly thinking, "Wow! She's really like this?!"

I guess I think of myself as a fairly practical person so it was hard for me to take in some of her shopping obsessions and her "need" for really expensive things. It just seemed so stupid to me that they didn't move out of their super expensive apartment long before they did and she just frittered her unemployment checks away. I just had no sympathy for her at all. So I say again, if you're a practical, hard-working, money-saving person, read this as a fiction book and you'll probably be very entertained (ala Confessions of a Shopaholic) and not annoyed.

I actually feel like I'm being a bit hard on the book and maybe I'm taking it a bit too serious. Normally, I wouldn't even think to second guess my feelings on a book, I would just write what I feel and be done with it, but I'd heard so many things about it being sooo funny. Maybe I had too high of expectations. I guess I'll be curious to hear what other book club members thought of it at our meeting next week. :-)

A few reviews

This is a pretty random assortment of reading here!

Death at Wentwater Court by Carola Dunn: This is the first Daisy Dalrymple mystery, and I thought it was lots of fun. These are set in the 1920s England and Daisy is a Town & Country reporter, shocking her family (I think her father is a baronet or something). Anyway, Daisy is likeable and I think Dunn evokes 1920s England well, at least to someone who's seen Gosford Park. The plot is well done. Daisy is at a family's country house when an apparent accident takes place. Daisy's photography uncovers a suggestion that it might have been murder. I'll have to find the second in the series--I think there are 16 or something. It was cute and well-written. I think cozy readers and those interested in historical fiction might get a kick out of this.

Duma Key by Stephen King: It's been hit or miss for me with recent Stephen King, but I had a hard time putting Duma Key down, even with 600+ pages. He's used his personal experience with recovering from a terrible accident and placed in on Edgar Freemantle, who loses an arm and scrambles his brain in an accident. His 25-year marriage ends, and when his doctor suggests "geographical therapy," Freemantle (randomly, he thinks) chooses Duma Key, an isolated island off the coast of Sarasota. He takes up painting with a vengeance, stunning gallery owners in Sarasota, and haunted by his phantom arm and the voices of the shells under his house, he begins to uncover the truth about Duma Key and its oldest inhabitant, Elizabeth Eastlake. His hired help, Jack, and Elizabeth's companion, Wireman (who has also suffered a head injury, as has Elizabeth), help him find the source of his talent. If any part of the novel dragged, it was pages 500-600 or thereabouts--the exciting conclusion was really kind of long. But I found Edgar's emerging talent engaging, and King did a great job of the terror gently creeping into the story.

Back on Blossom Street by Debbie Macomber: I read the first of these, The Shop on Blossom Street, ages ago. It took me a while to get into this one. The intro in which Macomber basically explains everything that happened in the series so far was very long and dragged, but once I got into it, it was pretty fun. These are the most wholesome romance novels you've ever read, seriously, but they're also about the personal struggles of the various characters. She writes from the point-of-view of several, which is totally cheating, but it works for the stories she's telling. The prose is...saccharine is a good word to use here, maybe a really long Hallmark card is another way to put it. But if you're in the mood for uplifting, obviously telegraphed happy endings, and women solving their problems in a knitting group, this book is for you. I don't mean that as negatively as it maybe reads. I enjoyed the book, I did, it's just not particularly challenging and it's not my usual fluffy reading (very little sense of humor here). Anyway, Lydia owns a knitting shop and decides to have a class on doing prayer shawls. Each of the women in the class has a different problem going on, and everyone's happy at the end. There are really no surprises in this one, but it's pleasant and comforting.

I also zipped through How I Write: Secrets of a Bestselling Author by Janet Evanovich. She co-wrote this with a creative writing professor, to make it more credible, I guess. Anyway, the poor professor's parts are fairly dry, but useful and well-organized. The book is mainly Q&A with Evanovich, based on questions asked by fans on her website. It's often interesting to read how a writer writes, and Evanovich is funny and entertaining. As a writing book, it doesn't hold a candle to Stephen King's On Writing, but it was interesting, and samples of query letters and manuscript pages, and advice on joining groups and attending conferences, is worthwhile. All in all, not an essential read for writers, but a fun one for Evanovich fans.

Naptime is the New Happy Hour

This book by Stefanie Wilder-Taylor has a healthy dose of humor, sarcasm, and parenting advice. Her first book Sippy Cups are NOT for Chardonnay is an hysterical look at parenting in the first year. This sequel takes a look at toddlerhood and I suspect she will have a third book out in another year or two about raising twins. ;-)

Wilder-Taylor lives in Los Angeles and she captures the Mommy Culture there perfectly. Having lived there for almost 6 years, spending 3 of those in the Mommy World, I can honestly say her portrayal is right on! I found myself chuckling every few pages and nodding my head in agreement to her tips and anecdotes (yeah, LOVE the Target One Spot and kids really do think there is magic healing power in Disney Princess Band-aids!).

However, this book will translate across the board, whether you live in a big city, podunkville, stay at home or work. Read it! I think all moms go through those feelings of guilt about something or other, have no patience on some days, hate those seemingly "perfect" mommies because they make you feel inadequate. Wilder-Taylor says it all and tells you how to deal with those feelings....hence, the happy hour. :-) It's just nice to know that you're not alone. If you're looking for a fun, light-hearted look at parenting, pick this one up! And the first book too if you haven't read it already.

Oh, and for further reading, Wilder-Taylor has her own blog here.

Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Relin

Wow. I just finished this book. I hardly know where to begin. What an amazingly interesting story. Greg Mortenson is a man who decided a little over a decade ago to single-handedly take on changing the Middle East. During a failed attempt to summit K2, Mortenson wandered lost into a small village in Northern Pakistan. After being entranced with these impoverished people, Mortenson promised to build their children a school. At the time, they would kneel in the dirt and practice their multiplication tables writing with sticks in the dirt. This one promise of a school turned into what is now the Central Asia Institute founded by Mortenson.

Three Cups of Tea details his tremendous journey from the side of a mountain to building many schools throughout Pakistan and Afghanistan in order to secularly educate the children of the region. His belief is that if we help educate the children there, they will have options and will not have to be educated in schools run by religious extremists. Therefore, the ideals of the Taliban and other extremist groups of that region will simply die out with future educated generations. Mortenson's influence in the area has not only built schools, but women's vocational centers, and proper water supplies. He actively promoted education for girls and women so they would not have to live naively in their husband's shadow. They could become empowered and whatever they wanted to be.

The book was incredibly interesting and filled with details about the cultures Mortenson encounters regularly on his trips to the Middle East. I learned more about the Middle East from this one book than anything the American media has published since before 9/11. The story was moving and really makes you want to support Mortenson's cause. The old saying goes, "one person really can make a difference." Well, it is truly amazing what this one human being has accomplished and continues to accomplish. The book is pretty long and I felt like maybe there were a few details that could have been more glossed over or condensed. But because the overall effect of the book was so intriguing, it makes you keep reading on. Read this book. And then tell more people to read it.

I have long ignored nonfiction books as something to read in my spare time. I think often I look to books to escape stress from everyday life so I typically don't want to read things that I find difficult, sad, "boring" or disturbing. Yet, I've enjoyed the last several nonfiction books I've read and found them to be none of the above. Perhaps I need to rethink my preconceived notions about the nonfiction genre. :-)

Edited to add: I meant to mention that Mortenson spent much of his childhood growing up in Africa with his family. The whole section about his childhood reminded me of the book The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, one of my all-time favorite books. I've also had the book Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi on my bookshelf for a couple years now. I may get around to reading it now. It is about a small group of women in Iran who gathered secretly to read forbidden Western classics.

My Reading Marathon

I've actually finished three books in two weeks! Quite a record for me lately, I've had a hard time even deciding what book to pick up. A while back Allison sent me a box full of fun cozy mysteries, so I decided to take a look at those and try one out. I chose Murderers Prefer Blondes by Amanda Matetsky, the first in her Paige Turner Mystery Series. The book's heroine, Paige Turner, works for a detective magazine in New York City when she stumbles across what she hopes to be the perfect story to jump-start her writing career. The story takes place in the mid-1950's in New York City. As I was reading, it seemed like my mind was watching an old black and white detective film. I could picture all the characters. I got a little annoyed by Paige's best friend and her tone in conversations. I'm sure the slang was accurate to the time period, but it felt a little forced in that character for some reason. Although, I enjoyed the novel, the ending was very anticlimactic and predictable. But if you take it for what it is, a cozy mystery, this was an entertaining read.

I spent last week visiting my mom with the kids and spent the better part of any free time I had reading. It was great to be away from the house so I didn't have the guilt of "I should be doing this, oh, I'll just read a few more pages...." I could read to my heart's content and it was fantastic. I brought My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult with me. Whenever I mention Picoult to anyone, this seems to be the common book that people have read. I read it in about 2 days. For those unfamiliar, the story is about Anna, a 13 year old girl who was conceived to be a perfect genetic match for her older sister sick with leukemia. Throughout her life Anna undergoes various procedures that help prolong her sister's life. Finally, she decides she will no longer be a guinea pig for her sister and seeks medical emancipation from her parents. The book is told from the different viewpoints of all the characters and flows really well. It's a pretty heavy book because of its topic and you spend the whole book waiting for the inevitable. Picoult surprises with quite a twist at the end that shocked me. I wasn't very thrilled with it actually. I think because I had spent the majority of the book expecting a completely different outcome. Picoult covers the medical ethics topic well and from many angles. And I plan on continuing to read her other books. This was the second Picoult book I have read and both were told alternating the characters viewpoints. I'm curious, does she do this with all her books? Is this her signature writing style?

The last book, I just finished this morning: Crashing Through: A True Story of Risk, Adventure, and the Man who Dared to See by Robert Kurson. This is our November book club pick. I have to say, the topic did not intrigue me much and I toyed with the idea of not even looking at the book. I just figured I'd be bored to tears. But part of the reason I like being in a book club is because it makes me consider books I would not normally read on my own. So I thought I should at least look at the book. I got it from the library and figured I'd just sort of skim through it enough to make a comment or two at the meeting. Well I was very wrong, the book really pulled me in. It's the story of a man, Mike May, who lost his sight at age 3 and spent the next 43 years of his life blind. One day, he was with his wife at her eye exam and the doctor just looked at his eye on a whim. Then his colleague took a look. They told May he would be an excellent candidate for a new stem cell surgery and he might be able to see again. I was curious about how May lost his sight, how he gained it back, and whether or not he would keep it. And continued reading to find out. There were some very technical sections that read like an Intro to Biology textbook. I tended to skim or skip these sections all together. But everything else was very interesting and flowed very easily. May's tenacity and attitude are amazing. It was fun to read about his journey and see how it ended. If anyone is interested in nonfiction books, this was a quick and enjoyable read.

Sidenote: I'm also on Library Thing now. You can find my library here. I started one for my daughter as well, to keep track of what books she really likes. I also added books I think might be good for her in the future too. You can find her library here. I updated the Links in the blog sidebar, added a few new book blog links, and added book covers from my library. I thought it was time to spice up the blog a bit. :-)

Survivor--Real Life

I just finished Island of the Lost: Shipwrecked at the Edge of the World by Joan Druett. A nonfiction book that describes the experiences of castaways on the Auckland Islands circa 1864. The book mostly focuses on the five survivors of the ship Grafton. They were on the island for almost 2 years. As far as I can tell the author pieced the story together through survivor journals, articles and books written by two of the castaways, as well as newspaper accounts.

The book was slightly dry but the story interesting enough to keep me intrigued. I kept wondering how they would finally make it off the island. I was also amazed at the ingenious ways these men devised tools and learned trades such as shoe making to come up with everything they needed to stay alive and stay meagerly comfortable. The Frenchman, by the name of Raynal, was utterly amazing to me in engineering things they needed such as soap, shoes, tools, the chimney of their house, a boat, and killing and hunting seals. It seemed whatever they needed he could come up with. Definitely the right person to get shipwrecked on an island with.

There was also a parallel storyline about another group of sailors of the Invercauld ship where only 3 of 19 survived to be rescued. Basically, the book concludes that the Grafton survivors were able to eventually get off the island because they worked together and lived very democratically with each of them treating the others as equals. The Invercauld crew lived exactly the opposite of the Grafton crew. They remained in their hierarchy of officers vs. crew, did not stick together, didn't bother to work hard, laid around. And miraculously, the three remaining survivors were rescued long before the Grafton survivors.

There were long sections of the book dedicated to the intricacies of seal/sea lion hunting and mating. These were somewhat boring and too in-depth for my tastes. But perhaps someone will find them interesting. I suspect the author used it as filler to make her book longer. While reading this book, and particularly the part describing the differences between the two groups of castaways, I thought of the book Lord of the Flies by William Golding. I haven't read this book since middle school and I believe the movie came out about the same time as I read the book (1990). I decided I was going to get it from the library again and reread/skim it to see what I thought about it now as an adult.

The other thing that kept coming up in my head while reading Island of the Lost, was the reality television show Survivor. Okay, although parts of Survivor are completely contrived and edited to make certain things seem like a bigger deal or more intriguing, you learn that the tribes that work together as a team and stay together or align together get the furthest in the game. If I'm ever stuck on a deserted island, I guess I've learned that I will for sure be a team player. :-)

I think this book might be an interesting book club choice if it seems to be a topic your particular book club would be interested in.

PS. Yay! This is the 100th post to On My Bookshelf!

The Land of Indecision

Okay, I'm not sure if I'm just not in a reading mood lately, just can't find the right book for my mood, or what my problem is. I just can't settle on anything. As I've mentioned, I've enjoyed the No. 1 Ladies Detective series by Alexander McCall Smith. He's written quite a few other books as well so I thought I might try out his newer Isabel Dalhousie series. The first book is The Sunday Philosophy Club. I forced myself to read about half of it and just could not continue to waste my time. I was bored to tears. I guess the characters weren't likable enough to me to want to see how it turned out.

Then I moved on to The Uses of Enchantment by Heidi Julavits. It was reviewed in my Bookmarks magazine awhile back and I thought it sounded interesting. Again, I'm about 75 pages into it and I'm debating whether to keep going. The characters again are not that appealing to me (at least not yet) and the tone of voices switches between characters in a way I find annoying. I usually must finish a book once I've started it. But lately, I feel like there are too many good books out there to waste my time with something I don't really want to read.

So what to read then? Hmm.....maybe another Jodi Picoult? I'm also waiting for a book I requested from the library, Island of the Lost: Shipwrecked at the Edge of the World by Joan Druett. It's historical nonfiction about two different shipwrecks on Auckland Island south of New Zealand. One crew fights with each other and only 3 survive, the other crew manages to all survive for more than two years. It sounded sort of interesting to me. I'll give a full report if and when I read it. ;-)

For the Love of Pets

Now, I'm not much of a pet person. We currently are not responsible for any living beings other than our kids. I had a cat growing up, and my dad had a dog. I am much more of cat person. In fact, maybe someday if I can ever convince myself I will actually like cleaning up cat hair from everywhere, we will get a cat. I am not a dog person. At ALL. I never have been. Okay, are you wondering why I'm going on about pets?

Our book club pick for July is Marley and Me by John Grogan. I am little more than halfway through it and I am enjoying it! When it was announced this would be our book, I was not particularly excited and thought I would not be able to relate being the dog non-lover that I am. However, I am really enjoying. Perhaps its that I am amused by the dog's antics and thankful that I am not a dog owner. Obviously, its safe to say this memoir will be enjoyed by everyone, dog lovers and non-lovers alike!

On the same note, just to give cats an equal opportunity on this blog. Several years ago, I read My Cat Spit McGee by Willie Morris. I really loved this book as well. It's a sweet tale of how a dog lover turned into a cat lover. The author also wrote My Dog Skip. For anyone who is a pet lover or enjoys animal memoirs, I recommend these two books as well.

Grayson by Lynne Cox

This was our book club pick for April. A very short read, I finished it in about two hours I think. The book is a memoir of a woman's experience swimming along side a baby whale off the coast of Orange County, CA when she was fifteen. Part of the book is spent guessing about what exactly is swimming next to her. And the rest of it is spent trying to return the lost baby whale to its mother. This one was not really for me. It was short enough that I didn't hate it. But it was really sappy for me. I guess if I'm going to read a memoir, I prefer it to be funny, or very harrowing (like a book about a trip to Everest or Apollo 13 or something). While the story in Grayson is nice, I think it means more to the author than it does for the reader, at least this reader.

I also finished Death du Jour, the second book in the Temperance Brennan series by Kathy Reichs. I don't think it was nearly as good as the first in the series. The second half of the book went much quicker than the first half. There was a lot of information about cults which I found interesting but getting to that part was a bit difficult. The story seemed all over the place at first. I'm sure I'll get around to reading the others in this series though. Hopefully, the next one will be a little better.

I'm looking forward to reading The Friday Night Knitting Club by Kate Jacobs and The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield for our next two book club books. I think I might delve into a little science fiction (or is it fantasy) with my next book, The Stolen Child by Keith Donohue.

Reviews...

I read about half of The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid by Bill Bryson. I couldn't finish it, at least not right now. Not because it was poorly written or anything. I just got bored and had other books I'd rather be reading right now. The book is a memoir of his childhood growing up in Des Moines, Iowa in the 1950's. It's a nice look at the 50's and I might assume the 1960's but I didn't get that far. And it's fun to read about what life was like then. But I think this book might appeal more to the previous generation of Baby Boomers who actually did grow up during that time. I did enjoy the tidbits from various newspaper clippings that he put at the beginning of each chapter. They were very entertaining.

I just finished Booked to Die, the first in the Cliff Janeway series by John Dunning. I already posted that my mom thought these were good mysteries, but I wanted to elaborate. I really enjoyed this book a lot. Janeway starts out as a cop who is interested in the book business as a hobby. A bookscout gets murdered and he is on the case. However, before he can solve it, he gets himself into a bit of hot water by beating up a suspect. He decides maybe its time to leave the police force and he opens up a bookshop. There are a couple more murders that he knows are somehow connected to the first one. Even though he's no longer a cop, he investigates and goes on to solve the crime. This book flows very well and I didn't figure out who did it until the reveal. I actually got hooked on the book in the introduction. Dunning talks about how he got the book published and how surprised/humbled he was by its great success. He also gives his impression of the current bookselling world. I found it all very interesting. I look forward to the next one when I get a chance to read it.

Now onto Lost and Found by Carolyn Parkhurst for my book club this month. :-)

There Are No Children Here by Alex Kotlowitz, and more....

I haven't posted lately, but I've been reading lots: There Are No Children Here by Alex Kotlowitz; The Grizzly Maze by Nick Jans; Julie & Julia by Julie Powell; and We, the Jury: Deciding the Scott Peterson Case by Jury Members, Frank Swertlow, and Lyndon Stambler--just to name a few. I seem to be on a bit of a non-fiction kick, as I look back.

There Are No Children Here should be required high school, if not junior high, reading. I grew up not too far from Chicago, and my father once drove us into one of the projects on accident. I can't remember wanting to get out of any other place more than I did that one! This book gives true insight into what it is like to actually live in one of those projects and to try to eke a childhood and/or family life out of that bleak existence. My biggest surprise was that, in all the poverty of the Henry Horner Homes, the mother of the children featured in this book continued to have hopes of a better life for her children. Her younger boys Pharoah and Lafayette are wise beyond their years, but the essence of their childhood lives on.

I was fascinated by Timothy Treadwell's death a couple of years ago and saw the movie pieced together from the footage he shot in Alaska. The Grizzly Maze is a nonjudgmental look at Treadwell's life based upon interviews with his supporters and his detractors alike. I still don't know what to make of him, but I know a lot more about bears now! I hope never to encounter any of the black bears that live in the mountains near my home. I must say I'm a lot less inclined to explore those mountains now.

Julie & Julia came out of a year long cooking/blogging experiment by Julie Powell. Approaching 30 years old, she looks for a project to focus upon and decides to work her way through Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking in one year's time. I can't say it was a great book and certainly didn't capture great food in the manner of Ruth Reichl, but it was a decent way to pass the time on the train to and from work.

Like many people, I avidly followed the Laci Peterson story and her husband's trial. I hoped this book would reveal greater detail about the evidence and the thought processes of the jurors. I was disappointed that it seemed mostly to focus upon the personal dynamics of the jury and the opinions of individual jury members. I'm sorry to say that We, the Jury may also be the worst written book I've ever read. Better books about the trial are A Deadly Game: The Untold Story of the Scott Peterson Investigation by Catherine Crier, and Blood Brother: 33 Reasons My Brother Scott Peterson Is Guilty by Anne Bird.

From Harry Potter to Encyclopedia Brittanica

I haven't posted lately, but that doesn't mean I haven't been reading. I recently finished the latest in the Harry Potter series, The Half Blood Prince. I enjoyed the book quite a bit, but I feel like an idiot for not figuring out who was the Half Blood Prince sooner.

On a slightly more highbrow level, I also just finished The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World by A.J. Jacobs. It is exactly what the title says it is, a recounting of A.J. Jacobs' quest to read the Encyclopedia Brittanica from A to Z. The book is organized in encyclopedia fashion with alphabetical entries of varying lengths. This makes it a good book to read in spurts, because you always have a convenient stopping point. Jacobs shares with the reader the knowledge he acquires about each topic as he reads it, in particular, the weird and strange facts buried within the Brittanica. It was a surprisingly funny read.

Need a Laugh?

Boy, have I got the book for you! On my flight back to Wisconsin, I read Early Bird by Rodney Rothman. The guy next to me kept giving me sideways looks and trying to inch away. I tried to smile reassuringly and explain, "It's this book! It's so funny!" Yeah, he thought I was a loon. This is the memoir of a comedy writer who loses his job at the age of 28. Lost as to what to do next, he decides to test-drive retirement out in Florida. At first, he's perplexed by the old folks up washing their cars at 6:15 in the morning, 4:00 pm dinners at value buffets, and the ladies who can play five Bingo boards at once (he can barely manage one). But he settles into retirement, gaining acceptance into the exclusive clique that hangs out by the condo pool and joining the shuffleboard team. Laugh-out-loud funny and achingly poignant. A totally satisfying reading experience. I've been recommending this to everyone I know. It's 244 pages and a quick read. Read it! Seriously!

A Mommy book

For Mother's Day my mom gave me Sippy Cups are NOT for Chardonnay: And Other Things I Had to Learn as a New Mom by Stefanie Wilder-Taylor. I pretty much read this book in one day. It's such a quick read. And I think any new mom or mom-to-be should read this book! It's so realistic, although slightly over the top. In the Out and About With Baby chapter. She talks about one of her thrice weekly outings to Target and it made me laugh out loud and I could completely relate! Actually much of the book I could totally relate to. I'm not sure if that's because this mom is from Los Angeles and we are both dealing with living in the same "mommy" scene. I'm sure it's the same everywhere. I suppose I could go on, but you really should take a look at this one if it sounds at all interesting to you. I laughed out loud several times while reading it.