Published in 2008. 256 pages.
As an introvert, I was excited to see a book celebrating this not-always-so-acceptable aspect of myself. The author certainly understands introversion, but I found the book to be only so-so. I also really disliked the cover and had to keep the book facedown all the while I was reading it.
2009.75
Published in 2006. 337 pages.
I read the apocalyptic young adult novel Life As We Knew It back in April. I'd wanted to read it for a while, and I decided to choose it for my church women's group book club. I thought it was a great read - but, unfortunately, the book club meeting was postponed and then never rescheduled, so I didn't get a chance to discuss it with anyone. I think it would have precipitated some good conversation.
I am looking forward to reading the other books in the "Moon Crash Trilogy" - The Dead and the Gone (published in 2008), which presents the same events from another viewpoint, and This World We Live In (to be released in April), which brings both story lines together.
Other book bloggers' reviews of Life As We Knew It:
If you have read and reviewed this book, I would love to link your review here. Please leave me a comment or email me your link!
Published in 1995. 323 pages.
First sentence (which is also the first of many "top five" lists): My desert-island, all-time, top five most memorable split-ups, in chronological order:
Published in 2008. 374 pages.
Midway through 2009, I'd heard such good things about The Hunger Games that I recommended it to my "book lunch girls" without actually having read it myself. I think we all loved it, as did both of my teenage daughters. Later in the year, I picked The Hunger Games for my book club too. Again, it was a hit - even with those that had been skeptical.
I've since read the sequel Catching Fire - which won 2009 Goodreads Choice Awards for both Favorite Book and Young Adult Series - and I'm eagerly awaiting the third book in the trilogy.
There were three topics of discussion that I raised with my book club:
Originally published in 2002.
Audiobook performed by Lisette Lecat.
This fourth installment in the adventures of The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency - which I enjoyed listening to early in 2009, after Morality for Beautiful Girls - could have been called Morality for Handsome Men.
I've read or listened to six books in this series to date. Perhaps I'll resume in 2010.
2009.16
Published in 2008. 306 pages.
I am not (yet) familiar with David Rosenfelt's Andy Carpenter mystery series. Don't Tell a Soul is a stand-alone novel and a recent Salt Lake County Library's Reader's Choice nominee. I found it to be a solid thriller as well as a welcome diversion from my busy, chaotic pre-Christmas schedule.
With the completion of Don't Tell a Soul, I have tied my 2008 number of books read. Since there are nearly two more weeks left in the year, I'm sure to exceed it!
2009.80
Published in 2009. 509 pages.
It took me longer to read The Lost Symbol than it did to read The Da Vinci Code (which, as I recall, I read in bed one long Saturday). But the third book in the Robert Langdon series, The Lost Symbol was a compelling read. I'm sure that if I hadn't been so busy and tired over the past few weeks, I'd have read it more quickly.
The action of the book, which takes place in about a day, was fast-paced and filled with puzzles. Like with The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons, I was definitely willing to go along for the ride!
The one thing I really struggled with was the idea that a video of Masonic rituals would be considered a national security issue. Maybe strange. Certainly misunderstood. But a national security issue?
2009.76
Published in 1956. 288 pages.
I think I'm in the minority, but I didn't love this memoir. The "family" parts were somewhat interesting to me - sometimes downright laugh-out-loud funny - but the "other animals" stuff just isn't my thing.
2009.65
Published in 2009. 279 pages.
Because I loved Michael J. Fox's Lucky Man when I listened to the audiobook last year, I was eager to read this recently published follow-up. While different in format - it is organized in four categories (Work, Politics, Faith, and Family) rather than chronologically - and somewhat different in tone, Always Looking Up is every bit as smart, funny, and insightful as Lucky Man is.
One of the concepts Fox presented that I especially loved was an idea he got from Christopher Reeve: optimism + knowledge = hope. In the section on "Faith," Fox writes:
Chris Reeve wisely parsed the difference between optimism and hope. Unlike optimism, he said, "Hope is the product of knowledge and the projection of where the knowledge can take us." If optimism is a happy-go-lucky expectation that the odds are in my favor, that things are likely to break my way, and if hope is an informed optimism, facts converting desire into possibility, then faith is the third leg of the stool. Faith tells me that I'm not alone. [pages 201-202]
Our little, shingled Martha's Vineyard saltbox is blessed with an unobstructed view of the Gay Head Lighthouse. Every night its beacon slowly turns, and each half revolution paints the house and hillside with a warm swath of light. From dusk onward, fireflies twinkle through the grasses like Bush forty-one's metaphorical "Thousand Points of Light." The beacon completes another thrity-second sweep of the nightscape, and a wave of brilliance washes out the glow of the insects. A thousand fireflies won't generate the luminescence sufficient to read a roadmap. A lighthouse - more powerful and dependable - speaks to the guiding nature of hope. By equal turns, it illuminates and darkens, so the way forward can be chosen in the light, and trusted in the darkness.
Admittedly, I haven't spent much time in West Texas, but given the amount and variety of brush the President clears on his vacations, my guess is that he has a lot of fireflies on that ranch - and no lighthouse. [pages 99-100]
I hate to say it, but I know parents who regard their children as instruments to be played. It's all a matter of what strings to pull and how finely they're tuned. I see them, to extend the metaphor, more as jukeboxes. Put in your two bits, maybe give them a bit of a nudge to get them going, but nine times out of ten, if you're lucky, they're going to play their own tune. [page 237]
We are where we are. If we keep moving, we'll be someplace else. We'll know when we get there. [page 262]
Published in 2009. 322 pages.
I think I've read every one of Mary Higgins Clark's mystery and suspense novels. This one isn't anything special - but it was a good escapism read for a MHC fan like me.
2009.59
Published in 2007. 268 pages.
I really liked this debut young adult novel, which (like Unwind) is a 2010 Beehive Award Nominee in Young Adults' Books. I completely agree with this comment from the School Library Journal:
The most impressive thing about this novel is the fairness and empathy with which Brande presents Mena's heartfelt struggle to reconcile her belief in both God and science.
Published in 2007. 335 pages.
Unwind is a Children's Literature Association of Utah 2010 Beehive Award Nominee in the Young Adults' Books category. It was also recently challenged (with six other books) in a high school in Kentucky, as reported by author Laurie Halse Anderson. This dichotomy of views made this science-fiction novel the perfect read for me during Banned Books Week!
First sentence: "There are places you can go," Ariana tells him, "and a guy as smart as you has a decent chance of surviving to eighteen."
Last sentence: At last, he allows himself the wonderful luxury of hope.
In my view, the best works of sci-fi provide commentary about our day and our society. Shusterman has written a book that challenges his readers' ideas about life - where it begins, where it ends, and what it means to be alive - and thereby comments primarily about the political debate between "right to life" and "right to choice," but also about organ donation, terrorism, medical advances, race, legalities, family, and doing the right thing.
Here are two favorite passages:
In a perfect world mothers would all want their babies, and strangers would open up their homes to the unloved. In a perfect world everything would be either black or white, right or wrong, and everyone would know the difference. But this isn't a perfect world. The problem is people who think it is. [page 75]
"Please ...," says the boy.
Please what? the teacher thinks. Please break the law? Please put myself and the school at risk? But, no that's not it at all. What he's really saying is: Please be a human being. With a life so full of rules and regiments, it's so easy to forget that's what they are. She knows - she sees - how often compassion takes a back seat to expediency. [page 83]
Ultimately, though, the power of the novel lies in what it doesn’t do: come down explicitly on one side or the other.
Published in 2009. 306 pages.
Execution Dock is the sixteenth novel in Anne Perry's historical mystery series featuring William Monk and Hester Latterly. I am a big fan of this series, and this episode did not disappoint.
One of the things I like about Perry's work is her use of words. Here are two passages from Execution Dock that I particularly liked:
He must never let Tremayne see any weakness. Tremayne might look like a dandy, a poet and dreamer caught by chance in the wrong place, but it was an illusion. His mind was keen as a razor, and he would scent weakness as a shark scents blood in the water. [page 35]
All the love in the world did not blind Scuff to the reality that they could fail again. He was a child with hope, optimism, and a lifetime's knowledge of failure behind him. The difference between surviving and not was wafer-thin. [page 296]
Published in 2004. 267 pages.
A big fan of Star Trek: The Next Generation in the late '80s and early '90s, I was intrigued earlier this year when I discovered that Wil Wheaton (aka Wesley Crusher) has a popular website and has published some books. Since I needed a book published in 2004 to complete The Countdown Challenge, I decided now was the time to check out Just a Geek.
I found Wheaton's writing to be irreverent and funny as well as insightful and poignant, and I look forward to reading more of his work!
2009.55
Published in 2009. 308 pages.
This latest adventure of Stephanie Plum was complete silliness. Just what I needed the week in July that I read it!
2009.47
Published in 2004. 322 pages.
I don't read a lot of "chick lit," but I had put this one on my to-read list quite some time ago, partly on the strength of Joy's review. Since I need a few books published in 2004 to finish The Countdown Challenge, I recently picked up Something Borrowed at the library.
Just what I needed after several long days at the office, I read almost the whole thing in one day, as it is a quick and compelling read. I found the main character Rachel White likable and her voice real. I will likely pick up the sequel Something Blue - which I understand is told from viewpoint of Rachel's less likable friend, Darcy Rhone - in the not-too-distant future.
Giffin's website has a Reading Group Guide for Something Borrowed.
2009.53
Published in 2003. 373 pages.
This third in the Thursday Next series was different from the previous two installments - but it was just as creative and fun. I'm amazed and impressed by the way Fforde's mind works!
2009.50
Published in 2002. 399 pages.
The second installment of the Thursday Next series, I liked this one even better than The Eyre Affair. I'm definitely hooked on this quirky series!
2009.41
Published in 2009. 368 pages.
This recent Kellerman novel focuses on two characters introduced in Bones - half-brothers Moses Reed and Aaron Fox. The mystery was good, and I found the ending very satisfying.
2009.39
Published in 2009. 226 pages.
I enjoyed hearing Dara Torres speak at the recent National PTA Convention, so I decided to read her book. I can't relate to all the details about being an elite swimmer - not even to the concept of being an elite athlete. But I came away from this book with a sense of enthusiasm for pursuing whatever it is that I want to do!
One of the ideas Torres talks about is the "details-matter mind-set." I like this description:
I know it's a weird thing to say, but swimming is sort of like one of those Impressionist paintings made with millions of dots. Sure, a dot is a dot. What's the big deal? But if you care enough to make each dot the exact right size and the exact right color in the exact right place, something amazing occurs. [page 132]
