Benita's Big Bad Book Pile 2021

Snak2021 ROOT CHALLENGE

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Benita's Big Bad Book Pile 2021

1benitastrnad
Redigeret: dec 30, 2021, 4:08 pm

Once again I will attempt to rid my shelves of books that have been sitting around for a very long time. I had a super successful year of ROOTing last year due to the extended Covid lockdowns so I surpassed my goal of 60 books and actually read 106 ROOT's last year. I don't think that we will have all of that time at home in the coming year so I am going to keep my goal for 2021 at a sensible level. I am going to aim for 62 ROOTS - books off my shelf - in 2021.

The books I will be reading will be anything purchased or added to my list before December 31, 2020. The eligible books can also be recorded books. I will add titles to this posting when I finish them and a short review below as I get time to write it. I will be leading the La Serenissima & Dordogne mystery read along challenge and will participate in the Non-fiction category challenge led by Suzanne. I will also monitor and participate in the British Author Challenge and the American Author Challenge when I can. Using these challenges was an effective way for me to get books off of my shelves so I am going to continue to use them as a motivation tool in the coming year to move books off my shelves.

I will use this first spot to index my ROOTS for the year.

1. Thick As Thieves by Megan Whalen Turner - sound recording - January 2, 2021
2. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J. K. Rowling - sound recording - January 3, 2021
3. Book of Blood and Shadow by Robin Wasserman - January 10, 2021
4. Playlist: The Rebels and Revolutionaries of Sound by James Rhodes - January 11, 2021
5. Night Country by Melissa Albert - sound recording - January 17, 2021
6. Scorpions: The Battles and Triumphs of FDR's Great Supreme Court Justices by Noah Feldman - January 24, 2021
7. Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker - January 26, 2021
8. Invention of Morel by Adolfo Bioy Casares - January 26, 2021
9. Island of Sea Women by Lisa See - sound recording - February 4, 2021
10. Almost A Woman by Esmeralda Santiago - February 5, 2021
11. Jury: Trial and Error in the American Courtroom by Stephen J. Adler - February 8, 2021
12. Bruno, Chief of Police by Martin Walker - February 12, 2021
13. My Own Two Feet: A Memoir by Beverly Cleary - February 14, 2021
14. Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town by Jon Krakauer
15. Passion of Dolssa by Julie Berry - sound recording - February 23, 2021
16. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J. K. Rowling - sound recording - February 28, 2021
17. Jim Crow's Children: The Broken Promise of the Brown Decision by Peter Irons - March 2, 2021
18. Dark Vineyard by Martin Walker - March 7, 2021
19. Smell of Other People's Houses by Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock - sound recording - March 12, 2021
20. A Question of Upbringing by Anthony Powell - March 13, 2021
21. By It's Cover by Donna Leon - March 17, 2021
22. Immigrant Architect: Rafael Guastavino and the American Dream by Berta de Miguel - March 18, 2021
23. Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem - March 20, 2021
24. Turkish Lover by Esmeralda Santiago - March 22, 2021
25. Travels With Epicurus: A Journey to a Greek Island in Search of a Fulfilled Life by Daniel Klein - March 27, 2021
26. Henna Artist by Alka Joshi - sound recording - March 28, 2021
27. Falling in Love by Donna Leon - April 2, 2021
28. Black Diamond by Martin Walker - April 5, 2021
29. River Horse by William Least Heat-Moon - April 20, 2021
30. Return of the Thief by Megan Whalen Turner - sound recording - April 24, 2021
31. Route 66 A.D.: On the Trail of Ancient Roman Tourists by Tony Perrottet - April 25, 2021
32. Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michele Richardson - April 27, 2021
33. Book of Boy by Catherine Gilbert Murdock - April 30, 2021
34. Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo - sound recording - May 7, 2021
35. Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World by Michael Pollan - May 10, 2021
36. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J. K. Rowling - sound recording - May 16, 2021
37. Brilliance and Fire: A Biography of Diamonds by Rachelle Bergstein - May 19, 2021
38. Giver of Stars by Jojo Moyes - May 23, 2019
39. Mauve: How One Man Invented a Color That Changed the World by Simon Garfield - May 28, 2019
40. Golden Tresses of the Dead by Alan Bradley - sound recording - May 30, 2021
41. Crowded Grave by Martin Walker - May 31, 2021
42. Empire of Dreams by Rae Carson - sound recording - June 6, 2021
43. Waters of Eternal Youth by Donna Leon - June 10, 2021
44. Singing Whales and Flying Squid: The Discovery of Marine Life by Richard Ellis - June 13, 2021
45. Vincent and Theo: The Van Gogh Brothers by Deborah Heiligman - sound recording - June 14, 2021
46. French Rhapsody by Antoine Laurain - June 17, 2021
47. Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo - June 22, 2021
48. Smoke in the Sun by Renee Ahdieh - sound recording - June 26, 2021
49. King of Scars by Leigh Bardugo - June 28, 2021
50. Rule of Wolves by Leigh Bardugo - July 4, 2021
51. Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford's Forgotten City by Greg Grandin - July 9,2021
52. Boat People by Sharon Bala - July 15, 2021
53. Behind Her Eyes by Sarah Pinborough - sound recording - July 21, 2021
54. Unseen City: The Majesty of Pigeons, the Discreet Charm of Snails & Other Wonders of the Urban Wilderness by Nathanael Johnson - July 21, 2021
55. Across the Green Grass Fields by Seanan McGuire - July 23, 2021
56. Builders by Daniel Polansky - July 25, 2021
57. How Paris Became Paris: The Invention of the Modern City by Joan DeJean - July 29, 2021
58. Earthly Remains by Donna Leon - sound recording - July 31, 2021
59. Deal With the Devil by Kit Rocha - August 3, 2021
60. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J. K. Rowling - sound recording - August 10, 2021
61. Deadly Wandering: A Tale of Tragedy and Redemption in the Age of Attention by Matt Richtel - August 11, 2021
62. Last of the Wine by Mary Renault - August 21,2021
63. Survival of the Bark Canoe by John McPhee - August 23, 2021
64. This Is the Water by Yannick Murphy - sound recording - August 28, 2021
65. Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary by Simon Winchester - August 29, 2020
66. Last of the Stanfields by Marc Levy - September 7, 2021
67. Born A Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah - sound recording - September 9, 2021
68. When the Sea Turned to Silver by Grace Lin - September 10, 2021
69. Devil's Cave by Martin Walker - September 13, 2021
70. Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - September 22, 2021
71. Blood, Sweat, and Pixels: The Triumphant Turbulent Stories Behind How Video Games Are Made by Jason Schreier - September 29, 2021
72. Last Painting of Sara De Vos by Dominic Smith - sound recording - September 30, 2021
73. Last Girls by Lee Smith - sound recording - October 9, 2021
74. This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone - October 11, 2021
75. Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (And What It Says About Us by Tom Vanderbilt - October 12, 2021
76. Bible Nation: The United States of Hobby Lobby by Candida R. Moss and Joel Baden - October 14, 2021
77. House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros - October 17, 2021
78. Women in the Castle by Jessica Shattuck - sound recording - October 17, 2021
79. An Unkindness of Magicians by Kat Howard - sound recording - October 24, 2021
80. Thieves of Baghdad by Matthew Bogdanos - October 24, 2021
81. When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka - October 26, 2021
82. Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee by Casey Cep - November 2, 2021
83. Last Chicken in America: A Novel In Stories by Ellen Litman - November 8, 2021
84. Such A Fun Age by Kiley Reid - sound recording - November 14, 2021
85. Color of the Sea by John Hamamura - November 23, 2021
86. To Serve Them All of My Days by R. F. Delderfield - December 1, 2021
87. Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley by Antonio Garcia Martinez - December 7, 2021
88. Last Night at the Ritz by Elizabeth Savage - December 8, 2021
89. Raven Tower by Anne Leckie - sound recording - December 9, 2021
90. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J. K. Rowling - December 17, 2021
91. Water: The Epic Struggle For Wealth, Power, and Civilization by Steve Soloman - December 28, 2021
92. Hench by Natalie Zina Walschots - December 30, 2021

2connie53
dec 30, 2020, 7:03 am

Hi Benita. Happy ROOTing!

3rabbitprincess
dec 30, 2020, 8:57 am

Welcome back, Benita! Challenges are such a good motivator to get books off the shelves.

4Jackie_K
dec 30, 2020, 10:33 am

Looking forward to seeing what you read this year, Benita. I'm doing the Non-Fic challenge too - Suzanne always picks such interesting categories.

5mstrust
dec 30, 2020, 12:36 pm

Happy ROOTing!

6cyderry
Redigeret: dec 30, 2020, 7:25 pm

Yeah! You're here! Good reading in 2021!

What's your goal?

7This-n-That
dec 30, 2020, 11:10 pm

Have an enjoyable year of reading and ROOTing.

8Miss_Moneypenny
jan 1, 2021, 2:10 pm

Happy New Year! Glad to see you back!

9benitastrnad
Redigeret: jan 4, 2021, 11:11 am

Thick as Thieves by Megan Whalen Turner
My first recorded book of last year (2020) was Book 1 - The Thief - in the Queen's Thief series - and it was Book 5 was the first recorded book of the year in 2021. This is a great series. It has complex characters and is full of intricate plot lines and intersecting story arcs. This one is no exception.

The heroes of this story are Costas (who appeared in the previous book of the series) and Kamut, the slave, who appeared in another of the books in this series. In this book Costas is sent to rescue Kamut and bring him back to Attolia so that he can provide valuable intelligence to the King of Attolia and so that he can gain his freedom. How they get back and the tale of the journey makes the book.

Even with all of the right elements in place for a bang up story, this isn't the best in the series. But I am sure that it will grow on me as I find myself already thinking about some of the threads in the book that are unresolved.

The narrator for this series is very good, and I will eagerly listen to the next in the series.

10benitastrnad
Redigeret: jan 11, 2021, 1:34 pm

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J. K. Rowling
My second recorded book of 2021 was Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J. K. Rowling. I have never read the Harry Potter series, so I got Book 1 from the library last year and listened to it while driving back to Kansas for Christmas. I decided to continue that tradition with book 2 and so listened to it while driving through rain, sleet, and snow this Christmas. It is entertaining, but I found the writing, plot, and characterization simplistic. It made me wonder why this series was such a hit? It is not nearly the quality of several other children's fantasy series such as the Wrinkle in Time series,Books of Beginning series, or Septimus Heap, which were all written for children of that age.

11MissWatson
jan 5, 2021, 9:11 am

Welcome back and happy reading!

12humouress
jan 9, 2021, 7:12 am

Happy New Year Benita!

I threatened (on Joe's thread in the 75 Book Challenge group) to follow you if you set up a thread. So, since you have one here, I should stick to my word :0)

13benitastrnad
Redigeret: jan 11, 2021, 1:32 pm

Book of Blood and Shadow by Robin Wasserman
This is a DaVinci Code style thriller for Young Adults. It wasn't that interesting or exciting to read, but I think that is because I did not find the plot to be that original at this point in time. However, if I were a YA reader it would probably be an exciting book to read. It is set in Prague and takes the reader through the history of the Kingdom of Bohemia and Moravia and through some of the major historical sites close to Prague. It does not explain the Hussite Wars and that is a major part of the story.

I read this book because of the Czech connection (my ancestry is almost 100% Czech) and I did find that part interesting. However, I just never could connect with the characters or the plot, so this book fell flat for me. It did have great cover art. The silhouette of the Prague skyline inside the pupil of the eye was outstanding and is very intriguing. Defiantly a hook to get you to read the book.

14humouress
jan 11, 2021, 3:08 am

>10 benitastrnad: I noticed what you said about the Harry Potter books on the January thread. I stayed away from it initially because of all the hype but then my husband bought me the fourth book. They are certainly fun but I couldn't work out what made them stand out from other children's fiction but, having come to it after all the hype, I found it difficult to analyse them objectively.

Well, if you work it out, let me know :0)

15Caramellunacy
jan 11, 2021, 6:59 am

>13 benitastrnad:
A shame you didn't enjoy the plot - that said, based on the Czech/Prague connection, I may end up picking this up. I very much enjoyed Prague the time I managed to visit and would love to armchair travel there right about now!

16benitastrnad
Redigeret: jan 11, 2021, 2:51 pm

Playlist: The Rebels and Revolutionaries of Sound by James Rhodes

This is a children's book about Rhodes pick of the best classical music out there. He uses accessible language and the style of his writing is ultra withit modern. The illustrations in this book are outstanding. The illustrator has chosen a collage approach. Each page is a patchwork of different pictures and font styles that make a cohesive hodgepodge. The colors used are amazing and very bright and bold and this combined with the mixture of font sizes and styles makes it visually appealing. The text is also appealing and could easily be read aloud. Each composer comes with a playlist of the music the author discusses in the text and the playlist is free on the website given in the book. This would be a great book to use in a classroom. Kids would totally love it.

17benitastrnad
Redigeret: jan 19, 2021, 11:14 am

Night Country by Melissa Albert This is book 2 in the Hazel Wood series. For an sophomore book it is good, but as is generally the case, not as good as the first book in the series. Book 3 will be published later this week and I will read it just to see if it is a return to form or not.

The plot for this novel is split between the world where Alice is living and the world where Ellery lives and all the worlds he explores. Ellery becomes a Traveler, while Alice stays at home where she is embroiled in a series of mysterious murders and becomes the prime suspect. The subplot of this novel is about storytelling and who gets to tell the stories. Does the author get to control the story once it has been created?

I listened to this book, and the narrator does a good job. However, since the novel was told in alternating chapter points-of-view, it probably would have worked better to have two narrators for this book. It works the way it is but it would have been clearer to the listener who was telling what part of the story if there had been two narrators.

18justchris
jan 19, 2021, 2:29 am

>10 benitastrnad: I have Thoughts about that. An orphan boy who is unloved by his family, a mysterious destiny, unsuspected magical talents and entre to a whole new magical world? I think most every kid at some point dreams about their family not being their real family, about being special and different. Kinda like playing the lottery and dreaming of being a winner, but for kids. Not to mention the nostalgic cozy those-were-the-days approach to English boarding school tradition. What's not to love? /s

I appreciated the imaginative details of the magical world. And the lovable heroes (and their coming of age/growing up over the course of the series). But the writing was pedestrian at best, and plenty of people have given better critiques than I could of the various bigotries embedded in the text and worldbuilding. The closing postscript of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was terribly schmaltzy, and I really didn't like the info dump climax scene--weak writing from my perspective. I really didn't like that she raises big issues like racial purity/ethnic cleansing, major ongoing oppression and exploitation of other species, slavery, etc and then just hand-waved it all away as unimportant as long as the status quo was restored and "everyone" lived happily ever after.

>16 benitastrnad: Sounds very interesting. I know that classical music as a genre encompases multiple centuries and many countries, with many trends and transformations across all of that, resulting in a very heterogeneous field of work. Yet to me, as a relatively ignorant listener, it feels monolithic. That book sounds like a great antidote to my ignorance.

19benitastrnad
Redigeret: jan 25, 2021, 10:44 am

Scorpions: The Battles and Triumphs of FDR's Great Supreme Court Justices by Noah Feldman

I finished reading Scorpions: The Battles and Triumphs of FDR's Great Supreme Court Justices by Noah Feldman. I picked this book to read for this month because it won the American Bar Associations Silver Gavel Media Awards back in 2010. This is an award that is given to honor outstanding work by those who help improve comprehension of jurisprudence in the United States. Awards are given to books, news broadcasts, newspaper stories, movies, blogs, etc. Selecting a past winner of this award has been something that I have done for the Nonfiction Challenge for the last three years. Each winner I have read has been worthwile.

I had heard about this book when it was published but the length of it, 513 pages, kept me from reading it. However, the events of the last years and the importance that conservatives have put on getting conservative judges appointed to fill court vacancies made me think that I should do more reading about how the system works and why so many people think it is failing. In short, I wanted to know how we got to now. That led me to this book.

Basically, this book is a history of the US Supreme Court from 1930 to 1960. It is about the judicial philosophies of four Supreme Court Justices. All were appointed by FDR because FDR wanted judges on the court who would advance his political aims. Each of the four men were selected because they had proved themselves valuable to FDR in political ways by finding legal arguments that would advance FDR's New Deal laws. The four justices were, William O. Douglas, Felix Frankfurter, Hugo Black, and Robert Jackson. Two of the three were Solicitor Generals and then Attorney Generals of the U.S. before they were appointed. Black was a senator from Alabama who was a progressive and had voted to advance New Deal policies while in the Senate. Only one, Frankfurter, was an academic, but he was also heavily entwined in New Deal legislation and in the political inner circle in Washington, D. C. Three of the four men had political aspirations. By that, I mean that three of them wanted to run for President.

Perhaps the most surprising thing I learned was that people serving on the Supreme Court did not see themselves as holding a lifetime appointment. They saw it as a stepping stone to higher office, whereas, we now, tend to see appointment to the Supreme Court as the highest job in the land. For instance, Chief Justice Charles Evens Hughes, was appointed to the Supreme Court twice. Twice. He resigned the first time so that he could run for President in 1916. He was then appointed as Chief Justice in 1930. Also surprising was that, while all of them started out as "liberal" - meaning that they supported New Deal ideas, laws, and initiatives, two of them ended up being judicial conservatives, while two of them became judicial liberals, with one, Douglas becoming more and more liberal due to his emphasis on individual rights over those of the states. Douglas was the only one of the four who was not trained in Eastern establishment law schools. He was from Yakima, Washington, and he laid much of the ground work for environmental laws, even going so far as to say that inanimate objects such as rock and rivers have a right to exist and that these rights shouldn't be ignored.

Lastly, all four of these judges believed that all Supreme Court decisions are political. Politics, for them was inseparable from the interpretation of the law. Justice was a different matter. Politics is personal, and while all four of these men came onto the court with different goals and objectives, they all ended up as judicial enemies. (scorpions, in a bottle - hence the title.). Only Black and Douglas remained on personal speaking terms by the 1950's and even that was tenuious.

I also learned that appointment to the Supreme Court was always a political matter. No president took selecting a judge lightly and always considered their political aims when making a selection. What has changed, is Congress. Congress now is so closely divided that it slows down appointment to judgeships to the extent that it now impedes the ability of the courts to implement and interpret laws. This is why the down ballot elections are as important as is the vote for president. That seems to be something that the present day electorate doesn't seem to understand.

This book was a very accessible academic book. It had extensive notes and indexing, but it read like a story. I would class this book as narrative nonfiction - whatever that is. Anybody who has an interest in history or what's to know how we got to now, should read this book. At times it was engrossing and at times infuriating, but it was always informative, instructive, and, I believe, important and timely.

20benitastrnad
Redigeret: feb 6, 2021, 5:51 pm

Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker
I read this book for my real life discussion group. It is a retelling of the Illiad from the women's point-of-view. The main character in it is Brisies. She is a princess from one of the minor cities that owes allegiance to Troy. It is conquered by Achilles, Odysseus, and Agamemnon. Is sacked and all the women taken into slavery. Brisies is given as a slave to Achilles as a reward for his military prowess.

Barker has written about war before and in fact won a Booker Prize for her trilogy on WWI. She does not stint on details of the bloody act of warfare nor about the post-traumatic effects of all that blood and displacement. She is very good at the details of both of these aspects of war. The point of this book seems to be about the effects of war on the non-combatants who get caught up in war. it becomes the dominating thing in their lives. They are given to men that they don't know, their children ripped from them, and are forced to live and work for these men. They create a camp that is more like a town. They have children and raise them. They produce food and clothing for the men, and nurse them when they have clashes and battles. Eventually, all of the women find a niche and a way of living. They all know that it is a precarious life because at any time the fortunes of war can leave them adrift again.

Our book club chose to read this book because we had read Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller last year and had a very good discussion about it. For me, Silence of the Girls did not have the same spirit as did Achilles. The approach the author took was more traditional, in that men are men and women are possessions and subject to the desires of men no matter if those are sexual or purely questions of dominance. It was very detailed about the life of the women and the world they created, but somehow it lacked the warmth that I wanted in this book. That may have been on purpose so that the author could leave the reader with the feeling of the cold reality of war.

21benitastrnad
Redigeret: jan 26, 2021, 2:36 pm

Invention of Morel by Adolfo Bioy Casares

I read about this novella on some list somewhere and found that it was reprinted as a New York Review of Books Classic. The Gorgas Library copy was lost so it was automatically requested for me through Inter-Library Loan. The copy came from SUNY - Albany.

This was a strange book. It seemed to be a retelling, or perhaps, the first version of an Island of Dr. Moreou book. It is about the slow disintegration of a person who is in isolation from himself and from others. It was very depressing, but was an original slant on an old tale about the quest for immortality.

22benitastrnad
Redigeret: sep 16, 2021, 1:33 pm

Island of Sea Women by Lisa See

I have read most of the novels written by Lisa See and have enjoyed every one of them. This is one of her better novels. I am no stranger to the haenyeo as I knew about them from studying food and food culture from around the world. This novel is set on Jeju island and starts in the 1930's and through the present day.

There are many levels of interest in this novel. The novel describes the life and the life style of the haenyeo and the matriarch society that they have developed on parts of Jeju over the years. As interesting as that is, what I found the most interesting aspect of this novel was the history of Jeju island that is built into the novel. Most Americans don't know that Korea was annexed by Japan in the early 1900's and therefore was considered to be enemy territory at the end of WWII. There was a strong Communist party in Korea and that lead to the division of Korea in the peace settlements after WWII. This novel explores what that division meant in terms of living in South Korea in the years immediately following WWII and leading into the Korean Conflict in the 1950's. The novel also deals with the changing of the Korean culture and social life due to the increase in living standards. There is lots of room to explore Korean history and culture after reading this novel.

23benitastrnad
Redigeret: sep 16, 2021, 1:44 pm

Almost A Woman by Esmeralda Santiago

This is book 2 in the series of memoirs written by the Puerto Rican author Esmeralda Santiago. In this memoir Santiago continues to describe her life as an immigrant to the U. S. She despairs of her family life and desperately desires what she sees as the typical middle class American life style. Her envy of people who have this life style is patently on display. Part of that is due to her age in this memoir. She is a high school student, then a young woman with a job and a part time college career. The education that she has received enables her to life the typical 1960's life of a young New York working girl/secretary. It is not a perfect life, but it is no different than that of millions of other young women of the day. What does make her different is her socioeconomic status and her heritage.
For both of these she faces constant discrimination. Santiago does not stint in describing some of the blatant racism and dislike of recent immigrants that she experiences. I can sympathize with her aspirations, but her unwillingness to look at some of the opportunities she was given in a more positive light became a bit wearying. Never-the-less, this book is uplifting in many ways, typical in others, and provides a more complete picture of the young woman she has become after her years of education. Since it is a memoir it is unfair of me to say that it is not a good memoir because it is her life. What a life she has had and the fact that she has had the courage to write about it in all of its good and bad aspects is remarkable. If you like memoirs and have read the first book, I recommend this second book as well.

24benitastrnad
Redigeret: feb 8, 2021, 5:23 pm

Jury: Trial and Error in the American Courtroom by Stephen J. Adler

This book was written in 1994 in the aftermath of the Rodney King trial in Los Angeles where all the white officers that beat him were acquited. This happened even though there was video tape evidence that was very clear about what happened, leaving the public dumbfounded about the verdict. This verdict then became a touchpoint for some serious talk about the inadequacies of juries and how the jury system was producing inequities in the judicial system.

Trial by jury is one of the few rights that is specifically named in the American Constitution and it is in danger because judges and lawyers don't think it works very well. Often the American public doesn't think it works well either. The author analysis four different types of trials and walks the reader through them. Social science research is brought into the picture as well as post trial interviews with the jurors. The author lets the reader see what the jurors were thinking and why they voted the way they did. In the end, the conclusion is that the jurors did not fail the system. The judges and lawyers fail the jurors.

The last two chapters of the book are filled with potential solutions to the problem. I ended up marking entire pages with sticky notes. The author proposes that courts should be more jury friendly. Instructions given to the jury should be given at the beginning of the trial rather than the end - that way it would not be so easy for lawyers to confuse jurors and jurors would be able to sift out what is superfluous and concentrate on what is important. Jurors should be allowed to take notes. They should be able to ask Judges questions about points of law.

Perhaps the most important thing the author recommends is that jurors not be excused for mundane reasons. The idea of a jury is to have a cross section of people and that is not happening in the current legal setup. Juries are overwhelmingly made of people who have little education and the research shows that they are easily overwhelmed in a court room setting. Jury rooms should be made more comfortable. Instead of stuffing them into small over crowded anterooms, Juries should have rooms that are nicely appointed and are comfortable with adequate heating, cooling, and ventilation. (Most jury deliberation rooms don't have this.)

In many ways this was an amazing book and should be read by everyone who is a citizen of the U. S. If I ever serve on a jury I will know much more about what my rights as a juror are and will know to ask for the ability to take notes, ask for written transcripts of important testimony, and ask the judge questions about points of law.

I highly recommend this book. It isn't long and it is written in accessible language. The author takes the time to explain legal terms and procedures. Sometimes he even goes back deep into English history to explain judicial customs and law.

25Caramellunacy
feb 9, 2021, 5:17 am

>24 benitastrnad: This sounds like a great book! I may have to grab this.

26mstrust
feb 10, 2021, 10:25 am

I've been on a jury, just once, but my experience was as pleasant as jury duty could be, and pretty interesting.
We waited for selection in two connecting rooms with comfortable chairs, a tv playing a movie, donuts and coffee, vending machines, water, and lots of people brought books and laptops, so there was a quiet section. Not bad at all. I wouldn't choose to be there, but it wasn't bad.
I was picked for the jury and we deliberated in a comfortable room. We were also allowed to ask questions of the judge through the bailiff, which we did. I wouldn't say that any of my fellow jurors were uneducated anymore than I think they'd describe me that way. The issue we had in deliberating was that two people wanted to disregard the law and the judges instructions and just find the defendant innocent because they felt sorry for him.
If you get on a jury, you'll be treated very well overall. Really, the court staff couldn't have been nicer, because they realize you don't really want to be there but you have to be :-D.

27cyderry
feb 10, 2021, 1:25 pm

>24 benitastrnad: Sounds like a very interesting book and I thought I'd try to get it, but it's not at the library, not at B&N, and Amazon only has a used hardback for $143.65! I think I'll have to wait until it can be found for a lower price.

28benitastrnad
feb 10, 2021, 5:29 pm

>27 cyderry:
Try Alibris. That is where I got my copy. I haven't looked to see if they still have copies available, but they might. It is an older book - published in 1994, so you shouldn't have to pay so much for it. Alibris.com

29benitastrnad
Redigeret: feb 13, 2021, 3:03 pm

Bruno, Chief of Police by Martin Walker

I read this book for the La Serenissima & Dordogne mystery challenge here on Librarything. It is the first in the Bruno Courreges series of police detective mysteries. The mystery group is reading it to contrast with the Guido Brunetti series set in Venice. This series is set in the Dordogne are of France and the life style there is very different from that of Guido. I am not sure if this book is a murder mystery or a food and wine book with a murder mystery thrown in on the side. It was a fun light read and I enjoyed it. In the evenings I found myself wanting to indulge in a bit of Bruno before turning out the light.

Because this is the first book in the series it took the author some time to get the story going, but when he picked up the murder mystery the story moved along much faster. I do appreciate that the author is giving the reader a good picture into the region and the lifestyle of the place. That allows us to live vicariously through Bruno and get to know the place on an intimate level.

The murder mystery is fairly straight forward. It is a revenge killing that harks back to World War II and the issues of collaboration and resistance. In the countryside of France there were many resistance groups supported by different ideological groups. There were also collaborators who provided information to the Germans and to the Vichy French government. This book is about the Resistance and the Vichy French government and their collaborators.

It is also a book about the modern day issues of ethnicity and religion in France. The murder victim is an Algerian Muslim who served in the French Army from 1944 until he retired. The issues of the North African French and their integration into modern France play a part in this novel.

I certainly want to read more about Bruno and the life in the Dordogne. I can't wait for the next one in the series.

30benitastrnad
Redigeret: mar 7, 2021, 7:53 pm

My Own Two Feet: A Memoir by Beverly Cleary. This was the second memoir of children's author and Newbery winner Beverly Cleary's. I read the first one in 2019 and wanted to read the second, but it wasn't in our library. I ordered a used copy of it from Alibris and it came from a high school in Ohio. I started reading these memoirs because at a Tuscalloosa Wine Club meeting Yamhill, Oregon was the appellation of one of the programs. I recognized the name because I knew that Cleary was from there. In fact the title of her first memoir was Girl From Yamhill.

Part two of her memoirs starts with her leaving home after high school graduation to go to community city college in California. She already knew that she wanted to be a librarian and that she needed to get out of her mother's house. Her Aunt offered to have her stay with them in their home in Southern California so Cleary took them up on the offer. That is where this memoir starts. It follows Cleary from community college in SoCal through her years at Cal-Berkley, then library school at the University of Washington, into her first years as a librarian, and ends with the publication of her first book Henry Huggins. It basically covers the years 1934 - 1955.

After I finished the book, I took the time to look Cleary up in Wikipedia because I didn't recall seeing her obituary in any of the library publications. To my surprise, as of 2021, she is still living. She is now 104 years old and lives in a retirement home in California.

This memoir, like the first, is written for children and is very easy reading. Cleary takes time to explain things that would be different or odd for children to understand when the book was published in 1995 and I appreciate that. I enjoyed the book, but I don't think that children would. I also don't think that modern children would understand how odd it was for a woman to have a professional job and a career back in the 1940's and 1950's. Even odder was the fact that Cleary didn't quit working when she married. Her problems with her mother are universal and I think that many tweens would understand that.

I think this book was written appropriately for her intended audience, but as an adult, I would have liked a bit more meat on it.

31benitastrnad
Redigeret: mar 7, 2021, 8:05 pm

Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town by Jon Krakauer. I read this book for my real life book discussion group. It will be the subject of our March discussion. Rape seems to be the theme for our book discussion group this year. Rape in the book about Troy and rape in this title.

This book was a frank discussion of the subject of rape. Especially rape in a college or university setting and the link with sports. It was a bit of a surprise as the author makes no attempt to sugar coat the problem and he points out the fact that much of the problem has to do with combing raging hormones with alcohol. A good portion of the book was about the link between the conduct of male sports scholarship recipients, the ranking of the teams - in this case football, and violence, and particular violence against women. Krakauer offers no solution to the problem, he simply exposes it.

The other part of the book is about how these cases are prosecuted and it is clear that he thinks that the county attorney's office had been mishandling rape cases. The police and the prosecutors were not sympathetic to the victims or their families and often placed the blame for the rapes on the victims themselves. He points his writing pen in the direction of one person in particular and according to what is in the book, he is probably correct in his assessment of this person and their willingness to prosecute these cases. In my opinion that is the kind of conduct that needs to stop. It is the same kind of police thinking that has allowed the racial and sexist policing that we currently have to flourish.

There is much food for thought in this book. In particular the link between alcohol and rape. It is clear that the consumption of alcohol by college students is at the root of the problem. It leads them to make poor decisions. It is also clear that to most college age males that women are objects of conquest and should be treated as such. The statistics the author quotes at the beginning of the book are staggering and should be enough to scare parents with college age girls into keeping their daughters at home and out of school.

32benitastrnad
Redigeret: mar 7, 2021, 8:12 pm

Passion of Dolssa by Julie Berry. I listened to the sound recording of this work of historical fiction. This was a very thought provoking novel for young adults, but it also had some problems. Most YA's don't come into reading a work of historical fiction with enough historical knowledge to make sense of the events portrayed in these novels. That is the problem here. Few YA's know anything about the Albigensian Crusades or about life in the Middle Ages in Southern France. I am glad that Berry wrote this novel and I appreciated what it was trying to do but I am not sure that YA's would do so. I think it might be especially misunderstood or simply ignored in this time in history because religion, and things religious, are looked on with such favor by a large segment of the population.

The story is told by different people with differing points-of view, and most YA's don't have the reading skills set to interpret this kind of writing. I thought it worked well, but I am an exceptional reader. I think that the author wanted to focus on the religious mystical part of the story and on that aspect of Medieval life, but I think that she failed. Medieval mysticism got lost in the shuffle of the story.

I loved the characters and Botella is a remarkable literary creation.

I short, I think this was a good work of historical fiction with a good plot premise but it suffered from confused execution.

33benitastrnad
mar 1, 2021, 12:12 am

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J. K. Rowling. simple plot with way to much time spent on building backstory. I think these books were so popular because they were so simple and some of the first wave of fantasy for kids. But that is because people with children who would appreciate these books had not read books by Madeline L'Engle or Susan Cooper.

34benitastrnad
Redigeret: mar 25, 2021, 4:49 pm

I finished reading Jim Crow's Children: The Broken Promise of the Brown Decision by Peter Irons and really liked this book. This book was another American Bar Association Silver Gavel winner - in 2003. It deserved the win. It is a powerful book.

Two thirds of the book is a concise history of each of the five school desegregation cases that went to the U. S. Supreme Court in the years 1951 - 1953, the arguments made to the court, and the immediate aftermath of the decision. The last third of the book is devoted to the subsequent decisions made by the Supreme Court in the years 1973 - to the present, and the results of those decisions - resegregated schools. This book was not an eye-opener for me. As an educator I already know the results of these decisions, but it did show a light back to the past illuminating the trail of how we got to now. It is a sad tale.

There are tragic heroes in this book. Thurgood Marshall lived and served long enough on the Court to see all of the work he and other reformers had done come to naught. Nixon is also a tragic hero. Nixon sold the Republican party to the reactionary segregationists of the South and the U. S. is still paying that price. I am not sure that we will every manage to move that rock. Nixon is also a tragic hero - he was so wrong in his philosophy and so right about implementing it.

At the end of this book the author revisits each of the school districts that filed those cases. Only one, has any semblance of an integrated school system. That is the school district in South Carolina where the public high school enrollment resembles the population of the area and the white school is the shabby run-down building with dropping enrollment. The other four schools are resegregated. The author makes the case that the fight over busing is what killed the idea of integration and he delves a bit into the politics of Nixon and Ford and why they would not stand up to the anti-bussing polemists. He also points out that Eisenhower did not make a move to support the court ordered desegregation until he was sure that he had popular support to do so. If some of the Northern states had voiced opposition to what was going on in Little Rock, he would never have ordered troops into the city. In fact, he didn't the first time students tried to enter the school. He waited until he was forced to do so by public opinion.

The author of this book has been criticized in the past for producing poorly written and poorly edited books. I did not find that to be the case with this book. It was very readable with only the last three or four chapters harder to get through due to the dense amount of statistics the author brings to bear on his conclusions.

I am sure that Ronald Regan rued the day that he nominated Sandra O'Conner to the Court, just as Eisenhower did when he appointed Warren as Chief Justice. She wasn't as conservative as Regan thought she was and in the later desegregation cases she found herself squarely in the middle of the Court. In many ways this book backed up what I have thought for a long time - the U. S. Supreme Court had one bright shining moment in the liberal sun while it was under the guideship of Earl Warren, and since the election of Nixon we have been totally in the dark clutches of conservatism. This book, and other reading about the Supreme Court this year, has made me wonder how the judges on the Supreme Court from 1950 to 1970 had the courage to make the decisions that they did? These men were legal and moral giants, who often had feet of clay. Nevertheless, they persisted and we are the better for it.

35benitastrnad
Redigeret: mar 15, 2021, 11:58 am

Dark Vineyard by Martin Walker
This is book two in the Bruno Courreges series and it is as much fun as the first in the series. For a cozy mystery series this one is filled with recipes and descriptions of food and wine enough to make your mouth water. I find myself curious about why so many mysteries are really about food, drink, and culture? Guido Brunetti is overly concerned about food and now Bruno. This series well serves to make people want to go visit the Dordogne region of France.

This second book serves to point out that all is not well with the region. The problem is the same all over the world - the migration of young people to the cities in pursuit of jobs. Well, better jobs. Or what is preserved to be better jobs. People don't seem to understand that you can make a good living being the local plumber, electrician, or tire repair guy. It seems that my little hometown of Munden, Kansas has the same problem as most of the Dordogne. Added to the problems of the Dordogne is the influx of tourists. That is one thing that Kansas doesn't have to deal with. Tourists simply drive right through it on their way to somewhere else. Apparently not true in France.

A second issue that kept coming to my mind as I read this book, was are the British tourists really that wealthy? The book was published in 2009 - well before Bexit and in this book, it is the British who have all the money. The citizens of the French countryside are poor in comparison. This makes me wonder if all countries view their neighbors and partners as being more wealthy than they are?

Both of these questions are cultural questions and perhaps the disguise of a mystery book is a way to explore these problems?

The mystery in this book, was no mystery. It was easy to see who done it about a third of the way through the book. The fun in reading this one, was just in exploring the food and drink that was consumed throughout the pages.

36connie53
mar 9, 2021, 2:40 am

Hi Benita. Just popping in to see what you have been reading.

37benitastrnad
Redigeret: mar 15, 2021, 12:06 pm

Smell of Other People's Houses by Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock. Sound recording.
I listened to this book and have to say right-off-the-bat, that this was an excellent recorded book. It was done with a cast of characters and each of them got their part in the story right. Great job - Listening Library.

Of course, it helps that the readers had a good plot from which to work and this plot was very good. This is a debut YA novel and the author did an excellent job. On the surface it appears to be just another book about over-wrought teenage angst and rebellion, and it is, but it is dealt with in a realistic manner.

This is also the rare book about indigenous people's in Alaska and the Yukon, and it manages to blend the experiences of teens from both indigenous cultures and white culture in a very realistic manner. I can see why this book was included on the ALA YA Best Books list and was a finalist for the Morris Award. Good job.

38benitastrnad
Redigeret: mar 14, 2021, 11:37 pm

A Question of Upbringing by Anthony Powell

I really enjoyed A Question of Upbringing. It is one of those books where nothing happens but everything happens and you get a great picture of what this young man's life was like. You can live it right along side of him. This is an excellent example of a descriptive novel at its best.

39Henrik_Madsen
mar 15, 2021, 11:01 am

>38 benitastrnad: Nice review. Do you plan to read all of the A Dance to the Music of Time series?

40benitastrnad
mar 15, 2021, 12:07 pm

>39 Henrik_Madsen:
eventually. I am in no hurry to do so. I have other series to finish reading first.

41benitastrnad
Redigeret: mar 21, 2021, 11:52 am

By It's Cover by Donna Leon. This is book 23 in the Guido Brunetti series and once again it is a journey into the Venetian world that is truly enjoyable even if it is a murder mystery. This one is set in the world of rare books and a rare book thief. Since the incident described in this book closely parallels one that happened at the University of Alabama Libraries this novel was of special interest. I enjoyed the book, but did find the ending to be rather abrupt. I prefer my books to have some sort of denouement or epilogue.

42benitastrnad
Redigeret: mar 28, 2021, 12:04 pm

Immigrant Architect: Rafael Guastavino and the American Dream by Berta de Miguel. this is a children's picture book that just came into the library. It caught my eye because it was about an architect and I didn't recognize the name. It turns out that this Spanish immigrant and his son (also named Rafael) was the team who did the interior arches of many famous buildings all across the U.S. This is a very interesting book and I hope that someday someone will write an adult biography of these two men. I would love to read it.

43benitastrnad
Redigeret: mar 28, 2021, 12:11 pm

Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem. I read this book for my real life book discussion group. It is our April 2021 selection. Lionel Essrog is an orphan who was taken in and cared for by a small time Brooklyn Hood. The Hood gets murdered and Lionel sets out to find the murderer and avenge his friends death. He eventually solves the crime but the hook is that Lionel has Tourette's syndrome. This is a compulsion disorder and this disability affects his relationships and his work life.

The strength this story is the descriptions of Tourette's that the author writes and how these compulsions manifest themselves in Lionel's life. He describes what it feels like for Lionel to have to control and tamp down these irresistible urges on a continuous basis. The author also highlights Lionel's coping strategies. At times it can be a bleak picture, but at times it is very hopeful. I don't know which is a bleaker picture - becoming a small time mob player or carrying around the burden of Tourette's all your life. It is also hopeful in that it shows that Lionel is able to function and have a life so all is not completely bleak.

This mystery is very well done.

44benitastrnad
Redigeret: mar 22, 2021, 4:26 pm

Turkish Lover by Esmeralda Santiago

I finished reading the third book in Esmeralda Santiago's series of memoirs - Turkish Lover. I started reading this series of memoirs last year when the lockdown started for the COVID pandemic. The story captured my interest enough that I wanted to read the other two books in the series. Besides, I am a completist and wanted to finish the series. I read the second book in the series last month and decided that while events and people were fresh in my mind I would read the third one for the comfort reads for the LT Nonfiction challenge this month.

The best of the memoirs is the first one. Esmeralda is the most likable and understandable in that first book. For much of the second book she is a spoiled teenaged brat. In this book, she is a wandering woman who can't figure out what she wants and wants other people to get it for her. In the course of reading all three memoirs I kept wanting to shout at her that she should just grow up, everything is not always about you. She whines about how she is discriminated against because she is PuertoRican and yet that very fact has given her the privileges she has - like an education at Harvard.

In this part of her memoir the author is very honest about her relationships and her lack of resolve in figuring out what to do with or about the men in her life and I do admire this honesty. She writes about her longing to return to Puerto Rico and at the very end of this book she does so. This volume takes her from New York City to Lubbock, Texas to Syracuse, New York and finally to Boston. On this journey we get to understand her education - not only from school, but from all the other parts of life in general.

I don't think that there will be another book by this woman, as according to Wikipedia, she had a severe stroke in 2008 that affected her ability to speak and read which has slowed her writing output considerably. Nothing by her has been published since 2011.

The writing in each of the memoirs has been excellent and her honesty about herself and her life is to be applauded. If you want some insight as to the life of new immigrants I highly recommend the first book in the series When I Was Puerto Rican, and maybe that memoir will capture your attention, as it did mine, and inspire you to read the other two memoirs.

45benitastrnad
Redigeret: mar 29, 2021, 4:13 pm

I had started reading Travels With Epicurus: A Journey to a Greek Island in Search of a Fulfilled Life by Daniel Klein. This one is a bit of a cheat for me. I actually started reading it a year ago as part of my personal "short books" challenge. I had gone through my collection and started reading every book I had that was under 200 pages in length. This book is 162 pages. It is not only a short book - it is a little book. By that I mean that the paperback version of it is only atone 5 inches high - so it is more square than rectangular in shape. Quite an attractive package, I must say.

I had read the reviews of this book years ago and they had stayed with me so I expected great things from it. I was disappointed - enough to note that fact, but not enough to say that this was a total waste of time. I think my disappointment stems from the fact that this is more philosophy than travel and I was hoping for the later. Like this author, I harbor thoughts of spending an extended amount of time on Hydra so I wanted to learn something about the island. That is not what this book is about.

This is a work of philosophy. It is an exploration of the thoughts and writings of Epicurus and a few others dealing with old age. In particular how do we deal with Old Age and the impending Old Old Age, as the author has dubbed that stage of life. The author, at the time, he wrote this book in 2012 was 73 years old. He uses the book to expound on the virtues of being retired and having the time to think about things. The time to slow down and Be.

This is the kind of little book a person should keep on the bedside table once they turn 60 years old and refer to it when needed. It helps a person to appreciate the good things about growing old and to learn to let go of those things that were so important at one time, but can turn into bitter burdens in old age.

46benitastrnad
Redigeret: mar 30, 2021, 1:00 pm

Henna Artist by Alka Joshi I got this book as an ARC at, what is likely to be the last ALA conference. It as the winter conference of 2020 in Philadelphia. The title and cover caught my eye. I am a henna aficionado. There was a time in my life when I got a henna design every year to mark my birthday, so this title intrigued me. Later it was selected as a Reece Witherspoon Book Club selection so I knew it was likely a good book. A month ago, it was suggested as a title for the Travel Book Club to read, and I instantly said that was a title that I wanted to read. It is now on our list. Our public library had the recorded version of the book, so got it and started listening to it.

The recorded version of this book is excellent. The narrator is outstanding. The accent is exotic, but easy to understand. The plot is interesting and has twists and turns that cause the reader to want to shout to Lakmeshi and warn her of what is coming. The writing made me love some characters and hate others. I loved Laksmeshi's patience and willingness to work for what she wanted. I didn't like Radha at all. She was indeed the Bad Luck Girl because she was thoughtless and heedless of how her actions would affect other people. She had it all and threw it away and took others down with her. This book is going on my best of the year list. It is the first work of fiction to do so.

I hope this author continues to write books this good. I will certainly read her next book in hopes that it will be as good as this one was.

47connie53
Redigeret: apr 3, 2021, 6:15 am

>45 benitastrnad: That sounds really interesting, Benita.

Happy Easter to you and yours!

48benitastrnad
Redigeret: apr 4, 2021, 9:31 pm

Falling in Love by Donna Leon. This mystery novel returns to the scene of the first novel in the Guido Brunetti series (24 books before this one). The scene is the Teatro La Fience with the object of the murder mystery the same Opera singer featured in the first novel. This novel tells the reader more about the importance of opera to the city of Venice while still containing a good mystery. This is another good entry in this series.

49benitastrnad
Redigeret: apr 26, 2021, 2:34 pm

Black Diamond by Martin Walker. This is the third book in the Bruno, Chief of Police mystery series. I read this one for the LT Mystery series challenge I host. This year it is titled La Serenissima and Dordogne Challenge. This entry in the Bruno series have food at its center. It's about truffles and illegal immigration from China into France using the Vietnam connection, because the French are easy to fool and think that all Asian looking people are Vietnamese.

As with all the Bruno books, history is important. In this case it is the French ties to Vietnam and Algeria. Since many French confuse Vietnamese and Chinese the Chinese people smugglers use this to promote and encourage Chinese to illegally immigrate to France, and through the EU agreements, from there to the rest of Europe. This mystery is more complicated than the previous books in this series and it is clear that Walker is growing as an author. He is getting past the introduction of his character and setting and moving into more intricate plots.

The best part of this book is the description of the truffle industry in France. There are detailed descriptions of truffle hunting and selling and the development of truffle plantations. The author outlines how trees in the French forests are being inoculated so that they will can be hosts to truffles. This practice started in the 1960's and has enabled France to meet the worldwide demand for this very expensive gourmet ingredient. The problem is the more they produce the more the demand grows. This part of the novel turned out to be the Red Herring in the plot but I wish it could have been the major ingredient in the plot because I found this ingredient fascinating.

50benitastrnad
Redigeret: apr 26, 2021, 4:10 pm

River Horse by William Least Heat-Moon. Is it travelogue? Is it environmental essay? Is it reconstruction of historical journeys in the same vein as Kon Tiki? That is the question. The answer is that this book is all of those things.

This was a long book about a long journey. Due to the episodic nature of the book it did not feel like it was a extraordinarily long book. It was so easy to read because each of the episodes was basically one days travel, which made it easy to pick up and read for a few minutes and then put down and come back to at a later time.

Basically, the book is about a 16 week journey that the author took starting from New York City's Hudson River all the way across the northern part of the U.S. by water. There was only about 25 miles of the journey that the author could not do by some sort of boat. Of course, he had many dams he had to portage around, but most of the journey was accomplished on his boat named Nikawa. Nikawa translates to River Horse in the Osage language, hence the name of the book.

The author started planning the trip about 2 years before he and one trusted friend, who he names Pilotis, made the journey. The first step was planning the route down to each days travel. The next step was finding the boat. It had to be a shallow draft boat due to the depth of the waters in the upper Missouri. He found the boat, purchased it and was ready to make the trip.

The book was written in short episodic style journal entries that made it easy to read. It was a true travelogue in that it traced the journey from beginning to end pretty much through these daily entries. He also brought in history and historical accounts of others trips across the continent - everybody from Henry Hudson to Prince Maximillian and Karl Bodmer the painter in 1832. At times he would vent his frustration with the crazy riverine and riparian laws that abound in the U.S., and these often were very good environmental essays about the state of affairs in many parts of the U.S. This left him plenty of room to write commentary on the state of the land, w water, and wildlife los seen, or not, along the way. The author turned out to be a powerful advocate for rivers, wildlife, and keeping things natural that includes demolishing dams and restoring rivers to a natural stream flow.

51benitastrnad
Redigeret: apr 26, 2021, 12:58 pm

Return of the Thief by Megan Whalen Turner

This is the way to end a series. It has a bang up huge big battle for the climax and then a long quiet denouement, plus epilogue, that allows the reader to find peace with the ending. Of course, I would expect nothing less from an author who spent twenty-fiver years writing the series. All that thought and planning counts. It makes a cohesive story that flows from book to book, even though the books are not all about the same person. It makes it easy for the reader to get caught up in the larger story and see the plot in a cinematic way.

The Narrator for this series has been excellent. He adds to the character and flavor of the novels. For me he is a good part of the reason why I like this series so much. I hope to hear more from him in the future.

I also hope that Turner writes more books that are so thoughtfully planned and executed as this series has been. It has just enough fantasy that it instills belief in the reader who can let go of convention and step outside themselves for a short time. It also sounds plausible and realistic and historically possible - if Greeks had guns at Thermopylae. A reader can't go wrong reading this series. It has action heroes and heroines in spades and is well written to boot.

52benitastrnad
Redigeret: apr 25, 2021, 10:36 pm

Route 66 A.D.: On the Trail of Ancient Roman Tourists by Tony Perrottet. This turned out to be a combination of modern and ancient travelogue. Perrottet stumbled across and account of Marcus Aggrippa's huge map of the ancient world on which all the great tourist sites of the ancients were laid out and he was fascinated. He started looking at the ancient accounts of travelers from the Roman world, in particular the travel account written by Pausanias. It is the only ancient guidebook that has survived to the present day.

At first the author and his wife intended to follow Pausanias's route through Greece and end their trip with that. They started out in Rome and then traveled to all the major tourist sites in Greece that were mentioned in Pausanias. Of course, that led them to Turkey and the Greek cities of Ephesus, Pergamum, and Symrna. Once there it was on to Troy and from there the trail led to the greatest of all Roman holiday trips - Egypt. The last third of the book was about the Roman fascination with Egypt and how wrong the Romans got the history and religion of Egypt. It turns out that the Romans were fascinated by the funerary customs of Egypt along with their mummification rites. They were also enthralled with the worship of Sobek - the crocodile god. The Egyptians had created an entire city devoted to this cult in the Faiyum Oasis. The city was named Crocodilopolis and was one of the must see's on the Roman tourist list for Egypt. The author says that the Egyptian priests had developed tourist spectacle to rival those found in Las Vegas hotels. His description of the place made it seem to be an impossibility - but it wasn't.

The author states clearly at the end of the book that this work was not intended to be a scholarly account. Nevertheless he takes great pains to quote from Roman and Greek authors from the Pax Romana and his has an extensive timeline and source list. He also has a glossary of Who's Who at the end of the book.

This was not the more scholarly type of travel book that I was expecting. It is a rather light hearted take on ancient tourism and what is left of those sites for the modern traveler. Some of the places are changed beyond recognition and some are simply not there anymore due to the active geology of the Mediterranean and the desertification of parts of Egypt.

53Caramellunacy
apr 26, 2021, 5:19 am

>52 benitastrnad: That sounds like a fun project - and also lovely armchair traveling.

54humouress
apr 26, 2021, 3:17 pm

>52 benitastrnad: >53 Caramellunacy: It does sound like fun; I'm almost tempted.

55benitastrnad
Redigeret: maj 3, 2021, 12:08 pm

Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michele Richardson
This book had the misfortune to be published about the same time as another book about the Pack Horse Librarians of Kentucky and I think that resulted in both books losing a reading audience. I have not read the second novel yet, but plan to do so, and can make a better comparison of the two at that time.

I liked this novel, but thought it had a very very abrupt ending. I like novels to have a denouement that lets the reader know what happened to the characters and they are then able to make their own inferences about why the characters ended up that way. This novel didn't do that. It went directly from the big climatic scene to a short denouement that didn't seem to fit the events as related at the end of the novel. In short, I didn't think that the ending fit with the novel.

The other problem I had with this book was that I don't think that the author had a clear idea of what she wanted to write about. Was it the beginning of the independent woman? Cussy Mary had a domineering father who didn't want her to work and thought her salvation would be in having a husband. Cussy Mary didn't think so. Cussy Mary had a domineering father who didn't want her to work because it hurt his pride and implied that he couldn't provide for her. Was that what this novel was about? Was her father trying to keep her honor intact making this a book about forcing women to bear the burden of family honor? Was it about her weak and feeble attempts to break free of this life through her employment? It appeared to me that she was the main bread winner in the family. The pay the librarians received was enough for Queenie and her family to live off of, so was this a novel about Cussy Mary's failure to move out and life on her own since she had her own income? The reader never knows because the author never really lets the reader see into Cussy Mary's head. This doesn't make sense to me as a reader, because we already know that Cussy Mary is a woman of gumption simply because she went out and got a job in order to help. If she had that much fortitude her constant giving in to her father don't make much sense. This leaves the reader confused as to Cussy Mary's motivations.

Cussy Mary worked with a bunch of traditional minded women who saw their salvation in marrying well. Was this a novel about a bunch of jealous harpies? Was it a novel about a bunch of narrow minded people full of prejudices since the preacher and the townspeople all had their hatred so deeply embedded? Was it a novel about men wanting to throw their superior power around using rape as a weapon?

Cussy Mary was colored. In this case colored meant she was born with a congenital defect. Was it a Helen Keller type fairy tale/allegory? Was it a fable about the evils of vanity?

This was also a novel about how desperately poor this area of Kentucky was with deaths from disease caused by malnutrition. Was this a fine example of misery porn? And we can't forget that woven into this was the fight for coal miner's rights and the repression of unions.

Lastly, was this a novel about prejudice? Since Cussy Mary was colored and the rules of employment in the WPA forced some hiring of minorities it brought about a kind of change that the citizens of that part of Kentucky were unwilling to accept.

Buried within all of these conflicts that were a reflection of daily life in Eastern Kentucky but the problem is that for the reader it all got overwhelmed in the larger story. I am usually an advocate for editing and tighter plot lines and writing, but in this case I think this book could have benefited from more explanation and a more well rounded backstory and ending. I would not have minded if this book had had another 25 -50 pages. I think this was a fine novel that will bring home to people why Robert Kennedy's visit to Eastern Kentucky 40 years after the events of this book was such a transformative experience for him. I can imagine that the area had hardly changed in those 40 years. It is also a way to explore the roots of the very deeply intrenched attitudes of the people in this region of the U.S.

The author succeeds in drawing a picture of the severe poverty endemic to the area. She also shows the severe ignorance that is the result of poverty of education as well as of the means of living and she did it with compassionate finesse.

56benitastrnad
maj 1, 2021, 10:32 am

Book of Boy by Catherine Gilbert Murdock

I finished reading this 2018 Newbery Honor book and I wonder why this was so highly regarded in 2018? I don't think this story is going to age well. It is basically a retelling of a medieval tale and the motivations of the characters is not clear. Modern children are going to have a hard time relating to the belief system of that time and will regard this book as a fantasy rather than medieval morality play. Teachers will have to do too much work to set the stage for the story and in the end it probably won't be worth it. In the end I think that teachers, parents, and children reading it will give up on it. I think this is a Newbery clunker.

57cyderry
maj 1, 2021, 12:48 pm

>55 benitastrnad: anxious to hear your opinion.

58connie53
maj 3, 2021, 7:46 am

>57 cyderry: That sounds really interesting, Benita.

59benitastrnad
maj 8, 2021, 2:59 pm

Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo. This is book 4 in the author's Grishaverse books. It is not a part of the earlier trilogy. It is the first in a duology. At this point in time McLure Library has 10 titles by this author in the collection and 9 of them are checked out. I think that is because the Netflix TV series has proved to be popular. I hope it is a testament to the stories and the world that Bardugo created, as I enjoyed the first three books she wrote and so far her output shows no sign of slowing.

I wasn't sure that I liked this book when I started reading it. It is set in a different place in the Grishaverse with totally different characters and few hooks to the previous three books. However, about halfway through the book, things took off and I was hooked. I do think that there is far too much back story in this novel and some parts of that backstory could have waited for another book because they caused this novel to drag. This was a fun read and ended up being part steampunk, part magical fantasy, and all action. Fun stuff!

60connie53
maj 9, 2021, 8:00 am

I need to read something by Leigh Bardugo soon. I've heard many good things about them. I have 8 of her books on the digital shelves. So maybe sometime this year.

61benitastrnad
maj 9, 2021, 2:56 pm

>60 connie53:
I would start with book 1 in the Greishaverse which is Shadow and Bone. I think it works best to read them in the order they were published. I know that the Netflix series is blending the books together so that the timelines mesh but it would be impossible to read them that way.

62benitastrnad
Redigeret: jun 2, 2021, 12:36 pm

Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World by Michael Pollan
I have had this book on my shelves since I joined LT back in 2008. I have read other books by him in the meantime, but this one just never sang to me loudly enough to get my attention. I decided it was time to read it since the May nonfiction challenge topic as Animal, Vegetable, Mineral. This book fit into the vegetable category. (just in case you were wondering.)

This book made quite a splash when it was released and it caused me to dish out the money to buy the paperback at an ALA conference sometime in the early 00's of this millennia when it came out in that format. The book proposes some intriguing ideas about evolution and co-evolution of both plants and humans. He asks the question who is using who and comes up with some very different answers that what was accepted in the past. Pollan looks at four different plants and examines how they evolved to meet the needs of the humans who bred them and thus altered them, but how this proved to be as advantageous to the plants as it was to the humans. The four plants were the apple, tulip. marijuana, and the potato. Each plant has become more successful because of its involvement with humans, while the humans, in turn, have exploited them as well,

The author also focuses in on the specific quality of each plant that caused it to be desired by humans and led humans to artificially select genes for this trait that alter the plants significantly. That quality in apples was sweetness, tulips was beauty, marijuana was intoxication, and potato was control.

This was an excellent book with complex ideas about biology and philosophy intertwined and explained in an easy to read manner.

63benitastrnad
maj 17, 2021, 1:56 pm

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J. K. Rowling
Ho-hum. I listened to the Jim Dale recorded version of this book while driving back to Kansas. I had hopes that the quality of the series would improve with the more writing that the author did. It improved - in length, but little else. This book could have used a steely and determined editorial pen. Neither were in evidence in this book. The author simply spends too much time explaining EVERYTHING! This book could have been 200 pages shorter with a better editor. Plot was overwrought and the writing style was simplistic. Good children's book. Good narrator - if exaggerated at times, but enough that I stayed with it and didn't ditch it halfway across Missoury.

64cyderry
maj 17, 2021, 2:09 pm

>63 benitastrnad: I know it was long, but many the details in the book are important for the future.

65benitastrnad
Redigeret: maj 17, 2021, 2:48 pm

>64 cyderry:
I hope that is the case. I think that the problem is that I took too long to read these. They are old hat by now and very cliched. Sort of like reading Jane Eyre. The book itself has become a trope. However, part of the reason why I waited to read/listen to these was the fact that they are so long. It is the same problem I have with the Outlander series. I read the first 5 and every time I look at the new ones I really don't want to invest that much time in them - so they sit there. I suspect this will be my last Harry Potter because I just don't want to invest the time in the books because they just get longer.

66cyderry
maj 17, 2021, 6:57 pm

>65 benitastrnad: I felt that way about the Outlander series and I only read the first one!

67benitastrnad
Redigeret: jun 11, 2021, 1:12 pm

Brilliance and Fire: A Biography of Diamonds by Rachelle Bergstein
I read this book for the LT Non-Fiction Challenge. The May topic was Animal, Vegetable, Mineral. This was for the Mineral category.

I enjoyed most of this book. I think it is more of a history of the diamond industry than it is a biography so I think the title is misleading. It is a good overview of the world of diamonds and full of fascinating information. I was surprised to learn how prevalent synthetic diamonds are and how afraid of it many of the traditional gem dealers are. The part about the diamond mines in Australia was also of interest. I had no idea that Australia was such a huge producer of gem quality diamonds.

This is a short book. The book was formatted in a large type with lots of white space between lines. I think the publisher was trying to make this look like it was a more substantial book than it really was.

The copy of the book Brilliance and Fire I have has 375 pages total in it. However, about 100 pages of it is notes and index. That tells me that the book is documented extensively, and along with the formatting led me to the conclusion that some of this was an attempt to make the book seem like it was a more substantial work than the content contains. I do think that there is value in this book, as the tidbits of information about various diamonds, gem dealers, and jewelry designers was very interesting. In short, this is a good lead-in for those who want to know more about the connections between jewelry, culture, and politics.

68benitastrnad
Redigeret: maj 23, 2021, 11:39 pm

Giver of Stars by Jojo Moyes

I finished reading Giver of Stars by Jojo Moyes. It is a totally different book than Book Woman of Troublesome Creek. If you liked Book Woman, I would say that you are going to like Giver as well. They have totally different plots. Giver emphasizes the lives of the women who live in that part of Kentucky and the building of the coal miners unions. It is a more traditional story about the "good" librarians standing up to and fighting the "evil" coal mine owners. It is filled with interesting characters and even though the plot is straightforward it kept me interested. I became fully invested in the characters, so I can say that it is just as good as Book Woman - just with a different slant. Giver is a longer book - by about 100 pages, but I think well written. If you liked Book Woman, I would say that you are going to like Giver as well.

I think it is unfortunate that both books were published in the same year and about the same time. Readers would have a tendency to think that they would be plotted about the same way. That isn't the case. Both books are really good reads. Some might say that Book Woman is "misery porn" in that it is one of those books that features an exotic rare disease or medical condition, but even though it is the bleaker of the two novels I think it is a good read. Giver is classified as "women's fiction" and not nearly as bleak as Book Woman. Both labels work against the novels as they both are good books and illustrate the problems with labeling, tagging, genrifying, or classifying books. Sometimes those tags are erroneous or exclusionary in that they cause people to overlook books that might be great reads for them.

69benitastrnad
Redigeret: jun 13, 2021, 11:32 pm

Mauve: How One Man Invented A Color That Changed The World by Simon Garfield I read this book for the LT Non-Fiction Challenge. The June topic is Discoveries and this book is all about discovery. I took this book home with me and had time to get started on it early. It is a book that has only 250 pages with about 20 pages of references and notes, so it didn't take long to read once I started.

This is a book that a former Associate Dean at the UA Libraries read back in the early 00's and recommended it to me. I put it on my list and then forgot about it. I dug it out of my title list for the Non-fiction Challenge. William Perkin is the English chemist who discovered in 1859 that coal tar could be synthesized to make a dye that produced the color mauve. What he discovered was how to make synthetic dye's and this discovery changed the world by giving us "better living through chemistry." It was the first time that chemistry was used to discover a commercial consumer product and once the process of experimentation and documentation of the different trails of experiments was proven to be able to produce useful products the second stage of the industrial revolution began. At first Perkin was reviled by many chemists because he became a rich man due to his invention, and after he established the factory to produce the mauve dye, his dye gave him the financial means to spend the rest of his life doing purely experiment research chemistry. His invention allowed him to be a "gentleman" (or in this case a peer because he was Knighted for his discovery) chemist which was seen as being a more noble thing the doing chemistry for financial gain.

This book was copyrighted in 2000 and it seemed a bit dated. It is not narrative nonfiction. It is more on the scholarly side of the reading scale, but it was informative and I understand why my friend wanted me to read it back in 2004-5.

70benitastrnad
Redigeret: jun 11, 2021, 1:28 pm

Golden Tresses of the Dead by Alan Bradley

This is the last book in the Flavia DeLuce series. Or so Bradley says. He is retiring and won't write any more. I listened to the recorded version and, as always, Jayne Entwhistle is perfect for reading this series. This is a fine way to end the series. More of the same except that Flavia is growing up and maturing. It shows in the story. She is becoming more responsible, but it is clear that the heavy lifting of investigation is done by Dogger. Flavia is more the chronicler in this novel. It was a very entertaining way to pass the miles.

71benitastrnad
Redigeret: jun 11, 2021, 1:34 pm

Crowded Grave by Martin Walker

This was another good entry in the Bruno, Chief of Police series. I am reading this series for the LT Mystery Read-Along and it is the August book. These are so much fun to read that I am reading ahead. This entry in the series deals with the prehistoric caves located in the Dordogne region. Of course, there is a murder that is associated with an archeological dig in the area and Bruno gets involved. The mystery itself takes some surprising turns and while it does deal with terrorism it also deals with the mixed ethnicity of the area. This time it is Basque combined with the left-over resentments from WWII. It all makes for a really good mystery full of food, love, and culture.

72benitastrnad
Redigeret: jun 6, 2021, 11:56 pm

Empire of Dreams by Rae Carson

I would have enjoyed this book more if I had read it right on the heels of the first three books in the Girl of Fire and Thorns series. But since this is a new release and I read that series years ago, this has to do. Fortunately, this book is almost a stand-alone so it imperative to have read the original trilogy. Even so, I kept trying to figure out the connections to the earlier story and couldn't so just gave up and listened with pleasure to the unfolding story on its won merits.

73benitastrnad
Redigeret: jun 15, 2021, 10:20 pm

Waters of Eternal Youth by Donna Leon

I took some time and looked back on some of the things I had written about the Guido Brunetti series when I first started reading them and I have to say that after 25, and still counting, novels I am feeling much more generous to Ms. Leon and her fictional creation. I am coming to like Guido much more than I did when I first started reading these books. Perhaps he has become the "comfortable old shoe?"

In this mystery once again we find Guido manipulating his boss and investigating a cold case that turns into a new murder case when one of the people who has information about the cold case is murdered. It is also interesting reading about what Guido is reading and what moral and ethical dilemmas that he and his friends find themselves involved in while doing battle against the forces of corruption. And, of course, there is always Venice. And the food of Venice.

74benitastrnad
Redigeret: jun 17, 2021, 12:10 pm

Singing Whales and Flying Squid: The Discovery of Marine Life by Richard Ellis

I read this for the June category in the LT Nonfiction Challenge here on LT. The category was Discoveries. This book was all about discoveries - especially those in the last hundred years. The book was published in 2005 and there are parts of it that are dated, but still it is worth the time spent to read its 220 informative pages.

This book was chocked full of all kinds of information about marine life of all kinds. It read like an encyclopedia, but a very well written encyclopedia. It is even formatted like an encyclopedia with double columns just as encyclopedias had. Each chapter was short enough to make reading the dense text pleasurable and informative without being boring, but long enough to be a quick survey of the topic. It is perfect for an overview of the subject but not so long that it got boring or too academic.

It was also a blunt book, in that the author simply says at the end that marine life at all levels of the food chain are on the edge of extinction. He warns that fin fisheries are unlikely to ever recover, so the world's oceans will NOT be the source of protein now or in the future. The author does a great job of making people who eat fish feel guilty about eating anything that comes from the ocean except for farmed fish. I eat at Long John Silver's once a year and I think it is time for me to end that practice. I am feeling a bit self-righteous about eating fish. I stoped eating fish, except for one day a year, after I read Mark Kurlansky's book on Cod almost 20 years ago.

75benitastrnad
Redigeret: jun 24, 2021, 7:34 pm

Vincent and Theo: The Van Gogh Brothers by Deborah Heiligman

I went to bed a bit early last night and finished listening to Vincent and Theo before I went to sleep. The narrator of this book did an excellent job. I was impressed with this book. It was written for a Young Adult audience so it is not the definitive work on Vincent and Theo Van Gogh. It is a biography of their lives as brothers, so it doesn't center on Vincent's art, but rather on art as a way of life for both brothers. The subject of the mental illness in the family is dealt with honestly and openly as is the fact that Theo died from syphilis. YA readers are going to have questions about both the mental illness and the sexually transmitted disease so teachers or parents are probably going to get questions about both and should be prepared to deal with them. This is a good look at the Belle Epoch Parisian art scene. I learned much about the Van Gogh family. For instance, they were middle class and all fo the children in the family received good educations. Vincent Van Gogh was fluent in three languages - Dutch, English, and French. In many ways it was a remarkable family and it is that family life that was centered on in this book. I can understand why this book was highly recognized by the ALA when it came out. It is a sensitive portrait of Vincent Van Gogh and his brother and how that relationship was the defining relationship in Vincent's life.

It was a very well done YA biography. This book was a Prinz Honor Award winner and that is highly unusual for a work of nonfiction. It is a biography of Vincent and Theo Van Gogh told through the letters that they sent to each other. Unfortunately, we only have the letters from Vincent to Theo. Those from Theo to Vincent were lost after Vincent's death. What we have is due to the diligent preservation efforts of Theo's wife. It is a different perspective on the lives of the two brothers and well worth the time to read it.

76benitastrnad
Redigeret: jun 17, 2021, 12:04 pm

French Rhapsody by Antoine Laurain
The books by this author are so much fun. They are on the borderline of humor, romance, and chick lit. They are also short and so they are a form of mind candy for me. There is lots in these books that deal with French culture and life. This book is set in the present but is about a group of people who in the 1980's were members of a rock band in the mode of Eurthymics, etc. They had made a recording and submitted it to a record company. 33 years later the letter telling the band members to contact the record company finally arrives at the address of one of the band members. This sets off a search to contact all of the members of the band and the reader finds out what has happened to each one of the members in the subsquent years. It is a fun ride. The book is full of laugh-out-loud spots while at the same time skewring the French political and cultural scene getting digs in at everything from art to politics. Great fun to read.

77humouress
jun 18, 2021, 12:16 am

>76 benitastrnad: Darn - book-bulleted. The library doesn't have French Rhapsody but it does have The President's Hat.

78benitastrnad
jun 18, 2021, 1:54 pm

>76 benitastrnad:
The President's Hat is a good one. It is the first one of Laurain's books I read. It is a short book, but so much fun. I am sure you will enjoy reading it.

79MissWatson
jun 22, 2021, 6:29 am

>76 benitastrnad: Sounds like a perfect summer read...

80benitastrnad
Redigeret: jul 1, 2021, 6:20 pm

Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo

This is book 5 in the Grishaverse and like all of the books this one is a great magical adventure. It is a long book at 550 pages, but it is full of grand adventure. This book takes up where Six of Crows left off and continues the story of Kaz Brekker and his crew of misfits and thieves. All of the main characters are flawed but the reader ends up hoping that all of them will work through their various problems and that they will beat the bastards at their own game. Great fun.

81benitastrnad
Redigeret: jul 1, 2021, 7:19 pm

Smoke in the Sun by Renee Ahdieh

I listened to this book and I love the narrator - Nancy Wu. I would listen to this woman read anything. She is great. The book takes up the story of Mariko where the first book - Flame in the Mist - left off. The duology is set in a fictional kingdom that resembles feudal Japan. It is full of swords and sorcerers, adventure, and characters with which you can relate. There is some ambiguity in the story and that allows the readers imagination to wander. That's to the good. Another good YA fantasy novel from this author.

82benitastrnad
Redigeret: jul 1, 2021, 7:25 pm

King of Scars by Leigh Bardugo

This is book 6 in the Grishaverse and like the others it is a great magical adventure ride. The author returns the story to Ravka and the Grisha and their king. The king is damaged due to his encounter with the Darkling in the original trilogy. Now the readers get to find out what happens to him and his crew as they try to rule and keep Ravka free. There are lots of twists and turns in this first book and I can't wait to read the second in Nikoli's story. I hope that the author continues to write about this world as there are many great stories to be told. Telling the back stories in a separate novel would help to cut the excessive length of these books. This one clocked in at 550 pages and took me a solid week to read. Like so many of these series books, as the series progresses the length does too. It would seem logical that the publisher would cut the size of the book instead of letting the author continue to increase the number of pages. This leads to bloated stories and this one was on the verge of a bloated novel.

83connie53
jul 5, 2021, 7:10 am

Hi Benita! Trying to visit all ROOTers threads on this rather rainy day. You may have read on my thread about Peet's situation. I was so busy with hospital visits and other stuff I only took time to post on my own thread. I see you have been reading a few by Leigh Bardugo I'm now reading Het negende huis and liking, not loving it. That may be caused by the fact that I don't read a lot on my reader but love to read my own paper books!

I hope you are doing fine!

84benitastrnad
Redigeret: jul 6, 2021, 6:55 pm

Rule of Wolves by Leigh Bardugo

I am almost finished with this series. This is book 7 in the Grishaverse and it was a bang up ending with a lead-in to the next book in the series. I will probably read the new book when it comes out because all of these books are great good rides. They are full of excitement, adventure, and interesting characters. This entry in the series was a good way to end the story of Nikolai and his quest to be King of Ravka. The novel had plenty of plot twists and had a bang up ending with a denouement that I liked - even if it was a lead-in to the next entry in the series. I am reassured that there will be another book in the Grishaverse series. I highly recommend these books to people who like to read YA fantasy.

Like the previous book Rule of Wolves suffered from excessive story lines resulting in a novel that is 608 pages when it could have been 500. There was too much back story and too many characters and it is easy to see that all of this leads to more and more pages that are superfluous. The author could tell the various backstories in other entries in the series and not junk up the main story lines of the current book if they did that.

85benitastrnad
Redigeret: jul 9, 2021, 6:17 pm

Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford's Forgotten Jungle City by Greg Grandin

I confess that I started this book a month ago because it was the July reading selection for my real life book discussion group, but then I realized that it would fit into this category. I found this book interesting but also frustrating. It was interesting because it was about building the ideal town and farm. Henry Ford had some very Transcendental philosophical ideas and he used them as the basis for designing and building a town and farm on a tributary of the Amazon River that would provide rubber for his cars. He thought that the company would gain a steady supply of rubber while bringing civilization to the dark region of the Amazon. In 1927 Ford Motor Company started building the rubber plantation named Fordlandia to meet those diverse needs. The story of that effort was very interesting.

The book was frustrating in that it was really not that interesting to read. The historical event was filled with fascinating historical characters, not the least of whom was Henry Ford himself, but none of these people came alive in the story. The author had an interesting story to tell, but he kept the tone academic and this made the reading of it stilted and wooden. It just dragged in many places. At times it seemed like a borderline screed about the foibles and folly of Henry Ford, his obsessions with an idealized village life, his misbegotten ideas about the evils of labor unions, his insistence on transplanting Midwestern styles and values, and most of all, his invention of the impersonal industrialized factory worker. As a reader I felt that the author kept beating the same drum over and over and the effect was to make the book boring in many places. The Epilogue was a fascinating essay and succeed in getting my attention and keeping it even though it said the same thing about Henry Ford and Fordism that the author had been saying for the 350 previous pages.

The book has so many interesting pieces and parts that I don't want to say it was totaling boring, but I wish that the author had spent more time on these pieces and parts and less time on how Henry Ford kept making the same decrees and sending forth his edicts and giving the reader the philosophical background on each one, over and over.

So, least I make the same mistake, I will say, that it is an amazing story and one that has much in it on many many levels. It is totally worthwhile reading, but it isn't a work of nonfiction that is going to keep you reading far into the night because it is impossible to put down. This book can be put down and the danger in this might be that you won't pick it back up. You should.

86benitastrnad
Redigeret: jul 15, 2021, 3:34 pm

Boat People by Sharon Bala

I finished Boat People by Sharon Bala late last night and this one was easily my best work of fiction for this year. This book was the 2019 Harper Lee Legal Fiction Award winner. That award is given yearly by the University of Alabama Law School to the work of fiction that best depicts lawyers at work. This novel is about the MV Sun Sea Incident that took place in 2010 in British Columbia (Canada). That was an old merchant ship that had almost 500 Sri Lankan Tamil refugees on board. The Canadians allowed the refugees to land and then kept them in detention while the case for declaring them political refugees was adjudicated. This novel was heart rending and insightful and looked at both sides of the issue of immigration. There were large sections of it that outlined in detail the reasons for the fear that dangerous criminals and political radicals were on the ship. It took years to sort out the mess because so many of the refugees had no identification and could not establish their identities beyond-a-shadow-of-a-doubt. This novel excelled at explaining how the Canadian system of adjudication works and how these refugees fit into the larger scheme of Canadian immigration throughout history. It was easy to see how this novel won the Harper Lee Award because of this detailed by interesting explanation.

This book is my real life discussion group book for August. The reason we selected it is because we are living in Alabama and wanted to support the Harper Lee Award. I hope that other LT'ers will read it because it is just a darn good book. While it does make political statements about immigration, it is just a darn good book. Bala won several Canadian awards but I think LT'ers should read it because it is a Darn Good Book!

87benitastrnad
Redigeret: jul 21, 2021, 2:36 pm

Behind Her Eyes by Sarah Pinborough

Why do people like books about crazy people? Especially books about weird crazy people? This book is about an obsessive person in love with another obsessive person. Add in drug addiction, and a creepy supernatural element and you have the makings of a fine movie - unh, book. I have discovered that I am not a big fan of the unreliable narrator type of mystery and I certainly don't like psychological thrillers. They do creep me out to a degree but this one wasn't that surprising in its plot twists and turns. I have figured out most of the plot about a third of the way into the book, and even the slightly creepy ending didn't surprise me as I had that figured out as well. This book is a very popular psychological thriller and I am having some trouble understanding why. I rated this book as average, but many people rate it much higher. Oh well - on to the next book.

I listened to this book and the narration was very good. It as done with a cast of readers and I enjoyed listening to both of the female narrators. They made a rather mediocre book tolerable.

88benitastrnad
Redigeret: sep 16, 2021, 3:08 pm

Unseen City: The Majesty of Pigeons, the Discreet Charm of Snails & Other Wonders of the Urban Wilderness by Nathanael Johnson

The introduction to this book is a real peach of an essay. In it the author lays out exactly what he plans to do in the book. He is NOT doing a guidebook. He maintains that most humans do not learn by memorizing a guidebook. They learn by trying to solve a mystery or problem. Instead of providing a guidebook he is going to "start with the unknown in these essays ... the puzzles that bewildered me ... I was more interested in going deep than going wide." The focus of the book are those plants and animals that live with humans. They are not the exotic ones but the plain everyday plants and animals that we see all the time in cities everywhere. In doing so the author elevates the mundane and implores all of us, city dwellers, greenies, gardeners, and walkers to take notice of the wildlife that surrounds us. He asks us to wonder, question, and investigate. That is a tall order, but he maintains we will all be the richer for it.

89benitastrnad
Redigeret: aug 14, 2021, 2:27 pm

Across the Green Grass Fields by Seanan McGuire
This is book six in this series and it is one of the better ones. The previous book in the series was a bit of a disappointment but this title is a big improvement. This entry takes place in the world of hooved animals and McGuire sets tropes on its heads. Unicorns are stupid herd animals and centaurs are amazing with a defined social structure and culture that is female centered. Of course, there is the wicked queen, who turns out to be a king, and a quest for the heroine, but this is a satisfying short adventure that keeps to the main themes of the series while dealing with bullying in all its forms in schools.

90benitastrnad
Redigeret: jul 25, 2021, 6:58 pm

Builders by Daniel Polansky
This book is part of my "short books project." I started this last year before I was locked in at home. The idea was to read the short books or novellas that were being published by Tor.com (since morphed into Tordotcom) I had learned about these books at the summer ALA conference from the year before and decided to read as many of them as I could. When I got locked down I expanded the project and started picking up other novellas. This is one of the Tordotcom books that we had in the library. It turned out to be a fun read. The author uses animals in the place of humans and in so doing he can play around with all of the spaghetti western tropes that can be imagined. I says he was inspired by the work of Sam Peckinpah and it shows. The use of animals as characters enables the author to play off of the animal traits and strengths and this allows the reader to visiualize Clint Eastwood as - a mouse? Who would have thought? It seems super silly but it works. Lots of blood and guts - but it works.

91benitastrnad
Redigeret: aug 13, 2021, 4:56 pm

How Paris Became Paris: The Invention of the Modern City by Joan DeJean

I read this book for the Nonfiction Challenge for July. The topic was Cities and this book fit right in to that topic.

This was an academic book, but it was rather short for an academic book. It had 226 pages of reading and another 50 pages of end notes and bibliography. It covered the development of Paris from the reign of Henri IV to the end of the reign of Louis XIV. I learned a great deal about the history of Paris at this time and also learned many other things about Paris and the development of cities. Paris was the first city to develop a postal system. The first to have public transportation. It was the first city to ask the public to participate in city planning. The book also covered social and cultural developments of the era and laid some convincing groundwork for the idea that the French Revolution of 1789 was really only an extension of the leveling of French society that had occurred during the previous 150 years. There were chapters on the royal building projects of the years 1600 - 1789 and this included the housing developments, the building of what we now call the Ile de la Citie, the creation of public parks, public shopping areas, and the Pont Neuf. There was even a chapter on how all of this building was financed. This chapter was very enlightening, as it turns out that very little of the building was financed with public money. This book explained how the French developed their financial system and how this system contributed to the problems that the French monarchy faced throughout the 18th century. At the same time, the financial system created a very socially mobile society, with commoners able to enter the ranks of the very wealthy and become part of the aristocracy. France during the 17th and 18th century was a very socially mobile place. Much more so than I had thought it was. It was this mobility that, along with the financial system, directly lead to the political problems that manifested itself in 1789. The author takes the position that the Paris of these centuries was a great social and cultural leveler with the free mixing of people of all classes that encouraged democratizing ideas. There are chapters on the development of financiers, the freedom of women to move around and mix in with society, and a great chapter on the development of shopping, in the modern sense of the word, and the infrastructure needed to support shopping, the arcades and covered malls and the rudiments of department stores. Very interesting book. Now I need to go see Paris.

92benitastrnad
Redigeret: aug 29, 2021, 6:09 pm

Earthly Remains by Donna Leon
This is book number 26 in the Guido Brunetti series by this author. This is one of the better books in the series (but they are all good.) It starts with bees. Guido takes a couple of weeks off from his police work to rest. He goes to one of the outer islands of the laguna where one of his relatives has a small vacation estate. While he is there he meets the caretaker and spends his days rowing in the laguna helping the man take care of his bees. Then Davide disappears. When his body is found Guido investigates and learns the facts behind his death. The book ends with the question of who will care for Davide's bees?

The book is really about who we are as people and who we become due to events in our lives and decisions that are made. In this case Davide changed his life and there were some people in his circle of friends who did not want him to find out that they had changed also, and in one case that they had not changed.

93connie53
aug 3, 2021, 3:50 am

Hi Benita. Lots of books read again!

94benitastrnad
Redigeret: aug 30, 2021, 7:19 pm

Deal With the Devil by Kit Rocha
This is the first book in the Mercenary Librarian series. This is a SciFi/Fantasy series set in a dystopian world of an Atlanta, Georgia of the future. Huge corporations run the world and it is the have's living in one world and the have nots in another. In between are genetically, surgically, and chemically enhanced humans who are the corporation enforcers. The librarians are a group of women who each have talents that they use to gather and distribute books and movies, from the Before Times. They are on the hunt for a rumored motherlode of library books that they want to save. This is a fun romp that is the typical testosterone filled fight book that is coupled to a steamy romance novel. Just plain fun.

95benitastrnad
aug 13, 2021, 4:53 pm

I finished reading Deadly Wandering by Matt Richtel. This book is about one of the first court cases regarding distracted driving and it proved to be full of information about attention science. The book was written in a easy going style and was full of interesting information. The best parts of the book were the parts that were about the court case and about Attention Science.

The book is about a car wreck in Utah in 2007 in which two scientists were killed. They were hit by a teenager who was tailgating a semi-tractor trailer and whose SUV crossed the center line, clipped the oncoming car, causing it to careen into the oncoming traffic lane were it was hit by a heavily loaded pickup pulling a trailer. The teen driver said he had hydroplaned on wet roads. Later investigation showed that he had been texting while driving and he did not remember texting at all. How could that be? That is where the Attention Science part of the book comes into play and the reading becomes fascinating. The author goes back to the beginnings of Attention Science in WWII when scientists tried to figure out why RADAR operators missed so many incoming enemy planes when they plainly showed up on screens.

Once the Utah Highway patrol figured out that the facts of the wreck didn't add up and started investigating, decisions had to be made about how to charge the driver who caused the wreck. Could he be tried? Did any laws currently on the books in Utah apply? Ultimately these questions led to the passage of some of the toughest distracted driving laws in the U. S. by the state of Utah in 2012.

Everybody thinks that they can multitask, but the scientific fact is that we can't. Our brains can only do one thing at a time and the brain selects what is the most important and puts the rest off to deal with later. That is what the science shows. The science is at war with business in this case. As the author points out, Telephone companies deliberately advertised the use of cell phones while driving and did so up until 2015. Cell phone towers were deliberately placed along interstate highways and popular main arterial highways to ensure that there would be few dropped calls. It turns out that even talking on a cell phone while driving is dangerous and increases the likelihood of an accident. There is little difference in the statistics of hands free talking on the phone or holding a phone while talking. The author takes the time to explain why, in general, talking to a passenger in the car with you is safer than using a phone - turns out that two pairs of eyes are better than one. The passenger acts as a second set of eyes and alerts the driver of things that they should notice. This book explains how the science, the implement, the driver, and our culture all come together to create a very dangerous situation for those who use cell phones while driving.

This was certainly an eye-opening book, and it will make any conscientious person put the wireless telephone in the trunk of the car each time they get in to drive, but it could have been a much better book than it was. The author gets into the weeds when he starts delving into the personal lives of everybody involved in this particular case and that part of the book gets monotonous. Even so, I think that the topic is so important that it should have many more readers than it seemed to get. If you can find a copy of this book, I would recommend reading it.

96benitastrnad
Redigeret: sep 28, 2021, 1:00 pm

Last of the Wine by Mary Renault
This was my first Mary Renault book. I picked it because it was available at the library. It turned out that this was a fictionalized version of the Peloponnesian War. I thought I knew about this war because of having read some of the Greek classics for a course while in college, but this book made me refer back and forth with Wikipedia articles about people, places, and events on a fairly constant basis. For that reason I would say that this book would have been more enjoyable if I had a better background in ancient Greek history, but bit of criticism could be said of most every serious work of historical fiction. It is clear that Renault took her writing seriously and, while interpreting history, she personalized it and made it accessible for me as a reader. I think this is a fine example of historical fiction and might be a standard for other authors in the genre.

As I read it became clear to me that many readers of this book, and perhaps others by Renault, get caught up in the lifestyle depictions in the book. To that I can only say, they are not seeing the forest for the trees. It is hard enough for experts who spend most of their time studying the available evidence to make judgements about the lifestyles of ancient cultures, that I think I should just read the book and judge it on its literary merits. If you don't want to read a book about alternate lifestyles then probably historical fiction about any ancient culture isn't the kind of book that you should read. If you want to read a book that presents history in a fictionalized form that has interesting likeable characters who are caught up in the significant moments of their time then this is the kind of book that should be read. I am definitely going to read more of her work and learn even more about Greek culture and history.

97benitastrnad
Redigeret: aug 24, 2021, 7:31 pm

Survival of the Bark Canoe by John McPhee

This short book is a reprint of a long article McPhee wrote for the New Yorker about the bark canoe's that were invented by the Native American's. It is the story of a young man who became totally fascinated by the bark canoe and, since there were no Native American's in New England who knew how to make one, taught himself how to build bark canoes. Building them is now his livelihood and this book takes the reader through the process of building a bark canoe from scratch.
These canoes were a Northeastern U. S. and Canada invention because the natural materials needed to make them didn't, and don't, grow anywhere else on the North American continent. Along the way there is a huge amount of information about the use of these canoes by the Hudson's Bay Company and the voyageurs of yesteryear. It was bark canoe's that transported all of the goods to and fro across Canada and the northeastern part of the U. S., up until the middle 1800's. It was these eastern boats that made their way from the east coast to Alaska and back. As usual the book was full of wonderful stories about so many different things as well as the canoe. There was lots of information in this book about the different styles of canoe's produced by the different tribes. If you knew about canoes you could figure out what tribe the people in the canoe were from. Turns out that these watercraft are fascinating inventions, important to the development and exploration of this continent, and very very durable.

98benitastrnad
aug 29, 2021, 12:10 am

This Is the Water by Yannick Murphy
I listened to the recorded version of this murder mystery. I found it hard to follow because this book is written as a stream-of-consciousness novel. Because of the style in which it is written it is one of those rare books that doesn't translate well into the recorded format. The book is told from multiple points-of-view. Everything from the viewpoint of the water to the various people in the novel is part of the stream of writing. Every chapter, section, and sometimes even, the paragraphs start out with the phrase "this is ..." This made it hard to follow when listening to the book.

Generally I don't like stream-of-consciousness novels, and I did find this one confusing at times, however, I was able to follow it and once I became accustomed to the very different style and rhythm of the book, I found that it did work. It just wasn't what I expected from a murder mystery, suspense, thriller novel. It also helped that I got the print copy through ILL and from there on the story went much better. I also didn't really like the ending of the novel. The ending was satisfying but it really didn't seem to fit the character of the major characters.

99connie53
aug 29, 2021, 7:31 am

>95 benitastrnad: That's really something I have to tell my kids. They always call me when in the car because they think they can combine that. But not so I read in >95 benitastrnad:.

Good to know

100cyderry
sep 2, 2021, 11:28 am

>95 benitastrnad: wow, I wish I could get my husband to read this one.
I've suggested it to my book club. Thanks for the great review!

101benitastrnad
Redigeret: sep 28, 2021, 1:10 pm

Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester
When this book was published back in 1998 it became a best seller and made Simon Winchester a darling star of the narrative nonfiction world. I knew I would read the book, but kept putting it off. It had been our book discussion group list for many years and finally this year I just stuck it on the list. I wouldn't have believed how positive the reaction to this book would be. It is proof that you can't predict what people are going to like. The entire group loved this book and they talked about it for more than our allotted two hour Zoom meeting. Not only did they like the book - it turned out that they liked the movie as well. I thought they would like it, but I totally underestimated their reaction. Several of the members asked that we put more of his books on our list of books to read in the future. So I did.

The subject of this book was the two men who had the most influence on the development of the Oxford English Dictionary. James Murrey and William Minor. One was a self taught polymath and the other was an American medical doctor who was insane and served a lifetime sentence for murder in an insane asylum in England. That right there is the making of a great story and Winchester does justice to that tale. Of the two men, I found Murrey's story fascinating. He was from a poor background and was never accepted by the academic establishment at Oxford. His struggle to be recognized and to put his talents to use was one of persistence and finally reward. This was a quick easy read for me and I enjoyed it very much. I also enjoyed the fact that the members of the group enjoyed it.

102benitastrnad
Redigeret: sep 28, 2021, 1:19 pm

Last of the Stanfields by Marc Levy
I read this book as part of my "Last" project. I am trying to read books from my TBR list that have the word "last" in the title. I was surprised to find that this book was at the Tuscaloosa Public Library. Levy is a very popular French author and his books are read all over Europe. Even though Levy lives in New York City he writes in French and the books have to be translated. I had wanted to see what his books were like and this one had the word "last" in it, so since it was close and easy to get, I plucked it from the shelves and read it.

This book is a work of historical fiction. It is also one of those family epic sagas, with a mystery thrown in. It flashes back and forth in time between WWII, the late 1960's, and the present. It was slow to start, but once it got going, it was a well constructed story. At the heart of it is WWII and the Resistance in France. This is getting to be a trope in many of the French books that I read, (probably why I am such a fan of Laurain - he doesn't write about WWII) but this book presented a different kind of slant on the Resistance story by moving it past that and into the present of the characters. The Stanfields are an aristocratic family in Baltimore, MD with wealth and glamor to spare. However, the events of one night change that. A British citizen receives a mysterious letter that leads her to Baltimore at the same time that a Canadian citizen receives the same letter that leads him to Baltimore. Mystery and romance ensue. Reading this book was fun and I have already recommended it to others.

103benitastrnad
Redigeret: sep 9, 2021, 8:20 pm

Born A Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah
Are all celebrities dealt all the bad cards in life? Are they all outsiders and loners, and totally without friends? If you read enough of these celebrity memoirs it sure seems that way and this book is no exception to that rule. In short, there is a reason why I don't generally read celebrity memoirs and this book is a prime example of that reason. I was very disappointed in this book. I had to keep reminding myself that it was a juvenile's view of the world with a juvenile's way of looking at things. It seemed like another one of those celebrity "woe is me" screeds.

104benitastrnad
Redigeret: okt 2, 2021, 6:09 pm

When the Sea Turned to Silver by Grace Lin
This is the third book in Lin's series of children's books that tell wonderful stories using Chinese folk and fairy tales as the basis for these books. This book was nominated for a National Book Award. This is a beautiful book and one that is very pleasing to hold and to look at. The book is beautifully illustrated with vivid colored illustrations spaced throughout. It is printed in various colors of ink on heavy stock paper that feels so good in your hands. All three of these books would make great gifts for children.

The quality of the stories is outstanding. I am not sure if the writing is really that good or if it is the quality of the stories that makes this such a special book. It is clear that the author has a reverence and love for these stories that shines through the pages. The author notes at the end of the book that "stories are the secret to immortality." (p. 370) That is a message for both adults and children. Children will love these stories and will instantly pick up on the messages. The stories make great read alouds and for the person reading them they will be beautiful books to look at. I hope the author writes more of these books.

105benitastrnad
Redigeret: okt 2, 2021, 6:15 pm

Devil's Cave by Martin Walker
I read this book for the La Seranissima/Dordogne mystery comparison read and enjoyed every minute I spent deep in the French countryside with Bruno and all his friends. Like the previous entries in this series (this is book 5) this one is full of food, wine, and culture and flavor of the region. The mystery here is once again buried in the French Resistance and in family jealousy. The story also illustrates how hard the French are working at keeping their population in the rural areas instead of migrating to the cities. For Bruno, and the others in the book, the very heart and soul of France is at stake and it is vitally important that young people stay in the rural areas. This is another thought provoking look at modern France and its problems.

106benitastrnad
Redigeret: okt 2, 2021, 6:26 pm

Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
This book was a Alex award winner when it was published in 2003 and has been in the collection at McLure Library since then. It has been on my TBR list at least that long. I finally got around to reading it because I put it on the Book Discussion list for this year. I thought it was time to move our readers out of our Western world and get something read about modern Africa. The book discussion group had read Americanah by this same author and really enjoyed it, so that was another reason to put her first novel on our reading list. However, this novel is very different from Americanah. It is much darker and less easy to read. From the very first sentence the reader knows that something isn't right in the household, but what that is, is elusive. The story is told from the viewpoint of the 15 year old daughter in the house. Eventually it becomes clear that spousal abuse is a reoccurring pattern in the home. When the reader discovers that child abuse is also recurring it is shocking in its intensity but not unexpected. The novel is full of twists and turns and never lets the reader think that they know what is going on. It has kept me thinking about the outcome and I am not sure I think it was a good ending. I am puzzled by the behavior of the brother, and it will be very interesting to see what the other members of the group think of this novel. Especially when compared to Adichie's other novels. Since this book was published, Adichie has become known as a feminist author. There is a strong feminist slant to this novel and I can easily understand the trajectory of the author from some of the things she has written about in this book.

107benitastrnad
Redigeret: okt 2, 2021, 5:37 pm

I finished reading Blood, Sweat, and Pixels: The Triumphant Turbulent Stories Behind How Video Games Are Made just in time for the end of the month and the LT Nonfiction Challenge read. The September topic was Creators & Creativity. For this challenge I choose to read about a topic that was not familiar and I am happy to report that I enjoyed this book. It was written in a light breezy style that was like reading magazine profiles about companies, but with more human interest. That might be due to the fact that the author Jason Schreier is a reporter who writes about the tech industry and specializes in video games.

The book is divided into 10 chapters. Each chapter features a video game. Some of them are famous hits that have become cultural touchstones of the gaming world, and some of the chapters are about the colossal failures. Both kinds of chapters are full of information about why the designers, programmers, and writers succeeded or failed. In the end, it seems that the success or failure of a game depends on how well the company is able to organize itself to turn vision into reality, and how adaptable its organizational psychology is to different situations. These, combined with a bit of good luck created some hits and explained why some of the games failed. Some of the businesses that succeeded did so against really bad odds, and others that had plenty of money and personnel to throw at problems failed. In at least one case, the mitigation of a big failure after the release of the game resulted in a game that is still being played and that people really like, proves that sometimes failures can be fixed.

I found myself looking up terms like RPG, MMO, and RTG along with some of the jargon from the early chapters because the world of video gaming was unfamiliar territory. I soon felt more comfortable with the topic and am glad I read the book, as I have some background now when I hear the names of these games bandied about by the students and some of the faculty with whom I work.

Schreier has a new book that is coming out in October of 2021, and I put that title on my ever growing TBR list.

108benitastrnad
Redigeret: okt 2, 2021, 6:38 pm

Last Painting of Sara de Vos by Dominic Smith
I read this book as part of my "last" project. (I am making an effort to read books with the word "last" in the title.) This book is about art and art history. Specifically it is about a woman painter who practiced her art during the Dutch Golden Age of painting. There were very few female painters allowed into the painters guilds but in this novel, Sara DeVos was one. Few of her paintings survived into the modern era and the novel centers around a feminist art historian who has made her career out of ferreting out the life story of this one obscure painter. There is also the matter of a forgery. There was the basis for a really good novel in all of this, but it just didn't quite come together. The major characters just weren't that likeable and the story of the woman from the 1600's was just not big enough to overcome that deficit. Part of the problem here was the narrator. (I listened to the recorded version.) The narrator did a terrible Australian accent and he sounded so pretentious that it was annoying. I had to work really hard to get around that in order to finish the book. I think I would have liked the book better if I had read it instead of listened to it, but ...

109benitastrnad
Redigeret: okt 16, 2021, 9:24 pm

Last Girls by Lee Smith
Another of my "Last" project books. This one was the next book on the Tuscaloosa Public Library shelves after Dominic Smith and so when I grabbed that book, I grabbed this one too. The recorded version of this book was read by the author and I think that helped make the book better than it was in the written form. The author's southern accent added to the flavor of the novel as well and made this book a pleasant listening experience. That said, the novel was overlong and overwrought in places. It never brought in all of the characters and the main character had committed suicide and this proved problematic for the novel. I think the author was trying for a "Big Chill" type of novel but it missed its mark even if it was entertaining.

The premise for the novel was a reunion of a group of girls who took a raft down the Mississippi River in 1965. All of them attended the same college and in an English class they decided to do a "Huckleberry Finn" kind of thing and take a raft down the Mississippi to New Orleans. Forty years later one of the group has died and her husband asks the survivors to make the trip on a luxury paddle wheeler to celebrate the missing persons life. The author selects five of the women into which a deep dive into the story of their life is made. These stories are entertaining, but I am left with the question of what about Baby? and what about the other women? Aren't their stories important?

110benitastrnad
Redigeret: okt 16, 2021, 9:31 pm

This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone
This book was part of my "short novels" project from last year and as such had been setting on my home office desk since May of 2020. I simply got tired of looking at the cover (charming as it is - more on that later) and decided to take it with me on my short weekend trip. I thought I would have time to read it and I did.

This novel won a Hugo and a Nebula award for science fiction. It involves two characters - Red and Blue. Each part is written by one of the authors and it is written in an epistolary style. One author writes the letters of one character and the other replies. At the time of publication of the novel this was seen as innovative. (2019) I am not so sure that would be considered to be innovative now, but it was interesting for the time. The book was OK but it didn't really grab me as much as I thought it would when I purchased it. The cover is really good. It shows an effective use of color and symbolism that gives the reader hints about what is inside. Those hints are obscure enough that they don't foreshadow anything and it was only after I finished the novel that I understood the cover. However, I still thought it a very well done dust jacket and would have given the book and award just for that.

111benitastrnad
Redigeret: okt 28, 2021, 4:15 pm

Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (And What It Says About Us) by Tom Vanderbilt
I read this book for the Nonfiction Challenge here on LT. The category for August was Transportation. I started this book late and it took a long time to read. Partly because the notes were as interesting as the chapters. This book was about driving cars. At the beginning it discussed the concept of traffic and why there is so much of it and if heavy traffic really is the problem that people think it is. Turns out that it isn't that much of a problem. Heavy traffic slows down most drivers by only a few minutes, (In the 10 -15 minute range), but most people think it slows them down much more than that. It turns out that 2 lane roads are the most dangerous, and men are more dangerous drivers than women. The author has chapters about both of these factors and backs up these chapters with extensive notes. In fact, the notes at the end of the book constitute a goodly number of pages in the book. (about 100) This could have been a boring look at the ways that we drive and why we do so, but it was entertaining and interesting. I didn't learn anything earth shattering, but got lots of confirmation about why driving habits are the cause of most accidents and reaffirmed that there really isn't such a thing as accidents. Most deaths and injuries in cars are attributable to poor driving habits, which includes excessive speed and poor decision making. It took me a long time to read because it does have plenty of pages and then all of those notes at the end create even more reading.

This is a worthy read, and I have tried to correct some of my bad driving habits in the weeks since I finished this book. That does not mean that I have succeeded in doing so. But I am trying.

112benitastrnad
Redigeret: nov 11, 2021, 11:44 am

Bible Nation: The United States of Hobby Lobby by Candida Moss and Joel Baden

Stolen and forged art is a crime that continues to fascinate me. For that reason I read this book for the LT Nonfiction Challenge for October. The theme for the month was Heroes & Villain's. This was my villain's boook.

This is a book length expose of the Green family, owners of Hobby Lobby, and their activates that include the Museum of the Bible. The authors of the book had written a magazine length article about the Green family illegally acquiring antiquities looted from the Iraq National Museum. They failed to declare some of them to U. S. Customs, and lied about the contents of the shipping boxes. These shipping boxes contained cuneiform tables they were trying to import to the U. S. when they knew they were of dubious origin. The article was published in The Atlantic and The Economist and were specifically about the stolen and smuggled antiquities that came from the Iraq National Museum. This book goes into more detail (sometimes lengthy detail) about what was stolen, but nothing about how the items were purchased or where, so this is not a True Crime kind of book. It is very academic as the authors are both professors and the book is published by Princeton University Press.

The authors also go into detail about the Green family financing their Scholars Initiative. This is a program in which the Green family recruited professors who were NOT experts in their fields, but who were newer academics trying to make a name and a place for themselves in academe. The Green's would pay them and their students to translate hundreds of papyri and thousands of cuneiform tablets, but these professors and students could not publish anything about their work for the Green's. Anybody who knows anything about academe would know that this is not the way the system works. Academe is about the free exchange of knowledge, so the idea of nondisclosure contracts should have been red flags to professors at any level.

The Museum of the Bible in Washington, D. C. also comes under scrutiny with equally disastrous results. This is a museum built specifically as a way to spread the gospel and - oh-by-the-way, it is a very successful tax shelter.

In the end some kind of justice was meted out as the Green family has had to pay a $3 million dollar fine and return thousands of artifacts to Iraq and to Egypt. The Museum of the Bible did open in 2017, but already then it was opening under a cloud as this book and the magazine articles, as well as discussion of the Green family's activities in academic circles had taken place. The Green family was rapidly acquiring a reputation and the discrediting that goes along with that.

I had heard about the scandal and wanted to know more about it, so I picked this title to read for the villain's part of this challenge. Our library had a copy of it and so I read it. It is short - 190 pages, but hefty in its talking points. There are only four chapters in the book, but each chapter deals with one aspect of the problems in the Green family's methods of collection and dissemination of information. The authors are very thorough in their analysis and lay out the evidence that the failings in the enterprise are the result of a one-world view that is centered on white protestant evangelical basis that is set to confirm that basis. The authors point out the dangers of exclusion that are the result. While doing so they also point out the great educational dangers in letting these infractions slide. The harshest criticism of the Green's is reserved for their willingness to purchase stolen artifacts with a total disregard for laws that protect these artifacts and have made it very difficult for legal trade in these and for legal importation. The principles of provenance were totally disregarded by the Green family and their unwillingness to own up to the purchase of stolen artifacts and the reasons why this is so important to the study of these materials as well as for the people who live in the countries that were looted is also discussed at length.

113humouress
okt 16, 2021, 12:55 am

Some interesting non-fiction books, Benita, that would be BBs for me if I read non-fiction. You could tempt me ...

114Jackie_K
okt 16, 2021, 6:37 am

>112 benitastrnad: That sounds fascinating (and a bit depressing, to be honest).

115benitastrnad
okt 24, 2021, 5:49 pm

An Unkindness of Magicians by Kat Howard
This is a fantasy about mages and wizards (although, according to the book they don't like to be called that- maybe they should talk to Harry Potter?) that is set in modern day New York City. The magicians work for magical houses that are modeled on modern day brokerage firms. The magicians are modern day high finance big players and you pretty much get the plot. This novel has a good plot that is poorly executed. For most of the book it was boring and the writing uninspired. It was confusing at the beginning and the characters stock. The last third of the book picked up steam and made listening to it something to look forward to when I got into the car. Rating it 3 stars is probably being generous.

116benitastrnad
okt 25, 2021, 11:05 am

I finished reading Thieves of Baghdad by Matthew Bogdanos. This was a memoir and I thought it would be a book about the looting of the Iraq Museum and how they caught the bad guys. It wasn't. I read it for the LT Nonfiction Challenge for October, which was Heroes & Villain's. This book was a memoir of the life of Bogdanos. As such it was a whole lot of braggadocio and less about what I was looking for. Even so I found the book interesting and compelling as Bogdanos is a very curious mixture of testosterone overload, learned classics scholar, and lawyer - not a polymath but close. I am glad I read this book as I do have a much better understanding of what exactly happened at the Iraq museum and why it happened. My conclusion is that there is nothing to be done about looting as it is a old as civilization, but that the root cause of this incident was greed and corruption at the highest levels previous to the war itself. Most of the oldest works were replicas because the real item had been stolen years before 1993 or 2003. All of the people who worked at the Iraq museum before 2003 should have been fired and told not to come back to work because they were part and parcel with the scam to skim these works and use them as a cash reservoir from which the high government officials could draw at will. The museum employees were no help in finding the looted items and in several cases didn't have the knowledge they needed to run a museum of that size and scope anyway. They had received their appointments as favors and reciprocity agreements with those in power in the government. Add to that the problem that the real looting had been done in the 30 years that Saddam Hussein was in power, and was probably done with his knowledge and consent by his sons and other party apparatchiks years before the actual First Gulf War let alone the second.

117benitastrnad
okt 28, 2021, 2:04 pm

When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka
This was another little jewel by Julie Otsuka. It managed to set a tone and atmosphere and tell exactly what emotions were happening in 148 pages. Remarkable. Such a spare little book with so much emotion in it. Otsuka amazes me with how much she can convey in so few pages. If you can find it - it would be a good novel to read, but it may be hard to find as it was published in 2002. I thought that this was Otsuka's newest book, but I was wrong. Buddha in the Attic was published in 2011, so I didn't realize that WTEWD was so much older of a book. Otsuka has a new book coming out in February 2022. It is The Swimmers and it is another look at the Japanese immigrant experience in America - but from a bit of a different angle.

118benitastrnad
Redigeret: nov 11, 2021, 10:56 am

Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee by Casey Cep
I read this book for my real life Book Discussion group. We try to read a book about Alabama each year and this was the Alabama book for the year. The short form of my book review for this one is that one third of the book is about the Reverend. One third of the book is about the Alabama defense lawyer Big Tom Radney and one third of the book is about Harper Lee and her problem with publishing another book.

The book is centered around Alabama and the famous author Harper Lee. I am not a fan of the book that made Harper Lee famous. I think it is a lie and masks the true evil that was the way of live in the American South - Jim Crow. Southerners decided that since they couldn't keep slavery alive by fighting it out on the battlefields of the American Civil War that they would keep it alive using terrorism and the law to enforce Apartheid. They succeeded and for a hundred years after the Civil War they kept African Americans subjugated. Harper Lee's novel allowed them to lie to themselves and the rest of the U.S. that there were some noble Southerners who bucked that system.

Furious Hours was written by a graduate student who learned that in the 1970's Harper Lee went to Alexander City, Alabama and watched a murder trial there in hopes that she would then write a book about this murder. She spent months there and never wrote a book. Instead Cep wrote it - and did a darn good job of it. I think that this book is one of the best examples of narrative nonfiction I have read in years. The book is immersive. First, Cep takes the reader deep into the live of the murder victim, who it turns out, is most likely a serial killer. The author grabs the reader with the story of the Revered and the five murders that he mostly likely committed in order to cash in on insurance policy settlements. Then she introduces us to the character Big Tom Radney, the Alabama defense attorney with Northern ideals and liberal socialistic politics. Then she takes us to Harper Lee, and provides the back story into what Harper Lee might have been thinking when she moved to Alexander City to watch the trial and interview many of the main participants. All sections of the book read like fiction and it is unbelievable that they are in fact, fact. By the time the end of the book comes, with the death of Harper Lee, the reader is sorry to see it end. This is one book peopled with unforgettable characters brought to life by this author.

The author stumbled upon this murder case and Harper Lee's interest in the case while she was doing some research into a PhD thesis. Since Harper Lee's papers are sealed and there is no hope of reading her notes regarding this book, there is no way for the author to validate many of her theories regarding what might, or might not, have motivated, or not, Harper Lee. For this reason she does her share of speculation and that might be the flaw in this book. However, to me her conclusions make sense. The author posits that Harper Lee wrote "Go Set A Watchman" and that is the novel she wanted to publish. (I believe this is the stark truth, because at the end of her life Lee approved the publication of this novel, and she was of sound mind when she did so.) Her editor, back in 1960, however, pushed her to turn one of the characters in that novel into the subject of another novel, which became "To Kill A Mockingbird." This became Lee's only published work for many years. She simply was unable to write another novel. However, she had participated in Truman Capote's book "In Cold Blood" and knew that she could do the reporting for a True Crime book. When she heard about the murder case in Alexander City, Al she was interested and thought that she could turn it into as big of a book as Capote's. That was not to be and the author believes it was because some of the key figures in the story from that area would not cooperate, for one reason or another, and because they all (blacks and whites) believed that Harper Lee should pay them for this information. (There is a very heavy mercenary streak in the American South.) Add to this that Lee, could not verify the truth of any of their stories making it impossible to tell the story.

Some might quibble that this book is not about Harper Lee. I think that it is. Lee's story is entwined with that of the Reverend and Big Tom Radney and put together it makes for some good narrative nonfiction reading.

119Caramellunacy
nov 7, 2021, 5:39 am

>118 benitastrnad: I read that one a few years back and remember being very interested in the case (and sad that we never got the novel/true crime story about it) and very irked at Truman Capote (which is not new for me, but just gave me more fuel...). I hope you enjoyed it!

120benitastrnad
Redigeret: nov 21, 2021, 10:27 pm

Last Chicken in America: A Novel in Stories by Ellen Litman

The plot of this novel is told in a series of short stories with each story making up a chapter in the book. It is set in the Squirrel Hill area of Pittsburgh, PA and is about Russian Jewish immigrants. These immigrants are sponsored by a local Jewish congregation and the immigrants are resettled in this area of Pittsburgh. This is a bleak picture of new immigrants and their adjustment. By the time I got to the end of the story I wasn't sure if the subjects of the novel even wanted to immigrate or if they were forced to do so. The older immigrants seemed just as cheerless and lost as did the younger ones. There were a few bright spots in this novel but not many.

At the end of the novel I read the author's acknowledgments and noticed that one of her teachers was George Saunders. I am not a Saunders fan. I have to say that it his influence shows in that this novel might have benefited from a more straightforward style. Instead, the author choose to tell it in short stories which I don't think works as well as a more novelistic style would have done better. That, however, is my opinion, and my basis about how I like to read novels that is showing. This novel did provide some good insights into the lives and challenges facing new immigrants.

121benitastrnad
nov 10, 2021, 3:01 pm

>119 Caramellunacy:
I did enjoy this book. I live here in Alabama and it was a very interesting read from that point-of-view. I also thought the explanation of why Lee never finished, or even wrote one page of the book seemed plausible to me. I also think that Lee was fixated on her first novel, "Go Set A Watchman." It seems clear to me that was the novel she wanted to publish, not the one that was. I think that is why she gave consent for it to be published before she died.

122benitastrnad
Redigeret: nov 21, 2021, 10:20 pm

Such A Fun Age by Kiley Reid
Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid was "such a fun read!" I really liked this one. It has so much packed into one book and the narrator for it is excellent. If you are looking for an entertaining book to listen to, try this one. Excellent plot and great characters. It is packed full of social and cultural issues to chew on. It tackles the lack of respect for womens's work as well as race. It is funny and interesting while being provocative. It raises many issues and makes the reader think about them, but doesn't wander and doesn't slap a person in the face with them. An added bonus - It has a Great ending as well. This was a Reece Witherspoon Book Club selection and I have to say that I am gaining more and more respect for the people doing the selecting for this book club. I have read several of these books in the last year and have found them to be literarily accessible as well as thought provoking.

123benitastrnad
nov 24, 2021, 12:01 pm

Color of the Sea by John Hamamura
I finished reading Color of the Sea by John Hamamura. This was an Alex Award winner in 2007 and I honestly can't see that this is a book that a high school would chance to have in its collection. To much sex. This book was good in some ways and I wanted to like it much more than I did. This is a novel that peaks early and has periodic rises in the chart line, but the ending really didn't work. The main story is very well done, but some of the plot is really outlandish and contrived. The author would have done better to stay with the main story of Sam and not get sidetracked into other stories.

What is the main story? That of Sam and his adherence to the Samurai Honor Code and the consequences to him when he feels that he has failed to uphold that code. I feel like the author tried to put his main character into every major event possible for a Japanese American during World War II and I would have appreciated it if, he had placed Sam in half of the places he did and told a tighter better plotted story. The ending of this novel was off and was a letdown. The novel really shines at the beginning and that beginning is what dragged me into the story and kept me reading.

124connie53
nov 30, 2021, 6:35 am

Hi Benita, I'm trying to visit as many threads as I can manage today. You have been reading a lot of books and write such elaborate reviews, it's always a pleasure to visit. I hope you are doing fine!

125benitastrnad
Redigeret: jan 1, 2022, 6:15 pm

To Serve Them All of My Days by R. F. Delderfield
I loved this book. It reminded me of all the reasons to be a teacher and to love the profession. It is one of those books that isn't about anything but is about everything. I will be reading more of Delderfield in the future. Thanks to the LT'ers who finally nudged me to read this book. It was worth the effort.

126benitastrnad
Redigeret: dec 7, 2021, 3:46 pm

Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley by Antonio Garcia Martinez

This was a long book at 500 pages and it was quite a ride to finish it. The author's writing style was breezy, contemptuous, blustery, and fueled on testosterone. It is no wonder that nobody liked him much when he worked at Facebook. The book is not exactly an expose of Facebook, but it comes close to being that. It is more like a memoir of disillusionment. It is clear that the author wanted to work at this company very badly. He sold out his own startup and thought he had shorted his friends to gain employment at Facebook. Instead, this abandonment of his friends and his company lead him into an unhappy workplace which got worse as time went on. The author wanted very much to be in a bromance with Facebook, but it is clear that Facebook didn't want to return that affection. The author spent two years working on his vision of what advertising on Facebook should be and all of his efforts were rejected by the Good Ole' Goys Club that ran Facebook. The book was published in 2016 and was written about the years 2012-14 while the author was employed at Facebook. Some of the results of Facebook policy set back in those years came true in the election of 2020, but it wouldn't be fair to lay all of the ills of that election at the door of Facebook. However, Zukerburg is now under closer scrutiny than ever before as a direct result of Facebook policies.

This book is about advertising and how to do advertising in a digital world. The crux of the argument between the author and the Facebook Gods was how to go about monetizing advertising on Facebook. There were fundamental questions that needed to be answered in order for Facebook to become publicly traded and become a true information company in the 21st century. One of those was how to link the Facebook page to ads directed at one person. To do this would involve attaching the identity of the account holder to places that they frequented so that ads could be targeted. Zukerburg was against that as he saw, and probably, still sees his company as a social good, not just a shill for merchandizing. This book is all about how that is a fallacy and without monetizing the eyes on the page Facebook can't grow as a company.

In many ways, this book was as fascinating as it was repulsive. If you can stand the testosterone bluster and really desire to learn more about the social arbiter of the 21st century then read this book.

127benitastrnad
dec 9, 2021, 7:11 pm

Last Night at the Ritz by Elizabeth Savage
Last Night at the Ritz isn't a bad book. Not even a boring book. I would say that people who like Anita Brookner, Penelope Lively, and Elizabeth Taylor would like this book. Elizabeth Savage writes pithy sentences. Here is a sample.

"One Hour is not enough for cocktails. It may be enough for that handful of nonserious drinkers who hold a glass just for the looks of things, but they are not many."

"She would rather be home with an adequate book - if she didn't have an adequate one, an inadequate one would do."

This book is set in the late 1960's and tends to skip back and forth between present happenings and the narrator's reminiscences. Sometimes it skips around so much that it gets confusing, but in general this is a quiet book full of great detail. Sometimes the detail is a bit oblique, but the author makes sure that all of these details mean something and are not there to fluff out the book. There are gems of sentences among all that detail. Some of them are just laugh-out-loud funny and some make you stop and ask yourself "what did I just read?" It is a very literary style that readers don't see much of today. I am sure that if this author wrote this book today it would be hard to find a publisher for it due to its appeal would be only to the literati.

128benitastrnad
Redigeret: dec 10, 2021, 4:02 pm

Raven Tower by Anne Leckie

This fantasy is not at all what I expected from this author. Her Ancillary Justice series was so very good and very much a Science Fiction series that I thought this would be somewhat in the science fiction vein. It wasn't. It is a fantasy about Old Gods and the worship of these Old Gods. It was told from the point-of-view of two people and it was confusing at first because there were so few signals when the story was changing point-of-view. I think the author wanted this novel to be thought provoking, but I am not sure that it worked. This is a book I would recommend with reservations.

129benitastrnad
Redigeret: jan 1, 2022, 6:16 pm

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J. K Rowling
Another Potty Harry book. What else can I say? More of the same. This is number 6 and I have one more to go in this series. Wonderful. The best thing about these books is Jim Dale reading them.

130connie53
dec 25, 2021, 11:55 am

Hello Benita!

Trying to catch up on threads again. I want to wish you

131benitastrnad
Redigeret: jan 1, 2022, 6:21 pm

Water: The Epic Struggle for Wealth, Power, and Civilization by Steve Soloman
I started reading this book 2 years ago for the LT Nonfiction Challenge. the topic was Animal, Vegetable, Mineral and I choose this book. It was basically a book about how the struggle to provide water, or to control water effected the history of the world. It was crammed full of information about water as it relates to history and as such was set up very chronilogically. The best thing about this book, is that it treats water projects fairly equally around the world, so there is a great deal of information about water in the Third World and Developing countries as well as the Developed World countries. The last several chapters were very interesting because of the way climate change is playing out around the world and the effects of this on people and countries. This was well worth the time it took to read.

132benitastrnad
Redigeret: jan 1, 2022, 6:31 pm

Hench by Natalie Zina Walschots
This was my last book for 2021. The reviews on this book were so good and a couple of LT'ers really liked this one. They gave me the nudge to go ahead and try to read it and get it done this year. I think becuase others liked it so much I might have expected too much from it. The book starts out slowly but fortunately it picks up at about page 120 and gets going. It becomes fun to read and fast paced with several plot twits that kept it interesting to the end. There were a couple of places that snark overtook the dialog and that bothered me, but it was part of the character so it fit. It kept the reading until the plot took off.

The story is about Superheroes told from the viewpoint of the Supervillians. The heroine uses a mathematical statistical method of calculating the amount of damage Superheroes do after she is hospitalized becuase she was injured during a Superhero rescue. She begins to pick on one Superhero and the results are what the rest of the book is about. The author is a good writer and the plot twists make sense and keep the pace of the book so that the reader stays interested. This isn't great literature but it is a fun read.

133benitastrnad
jan 5, 2022, 10:47 am

I have set up my new thread for 2022. Here is the link
https://www.librarything.com/topic/338477#n7710666

I even have a book to put on it! One from my huge TBR list.