This book was a perfect summertime read – a good mystery/drama/love story kind of a page-turner. It’s the story of a young Amish woman in rural Pennsylvania who is put on trial for murder. Kind of mindless, but in a way I appreciated – it had been awhile since I picked up one of those books that you can sit down with and blow through 50 pages at a time. And this glimpse into Amish life was fascinating – though fictional, it seems from my small amount of Internet research that the author was pretty true to Amish standards and traditions. Their commitment and strict adherence to centuries-old traditions is both admirable and hard to imagine. Are there seriously still people in this country who choose to live life without automobiles or telephones? Mind-boggling. So, this book gets one solid thumb up – it doesn’t quite warrant a second thumb, but it was certainly one of those ‘fun’ kind of reads.
Archive for the ‘reading’ Category
This is the author’s true story of his experiences in war-ravaged Sierra Leone, where he flees at the age of twelve from rebel fighters and is soon after recruited to fight as a soldier for the cruel and corrupt government army. The violence he is part of as a young adolescent is horrifying – he is brainwashed into becoming little more than a killing machine, with a thirst for blood and a total lack of compassion for fellow human beings. Parts of the book caused me to cringe, to have to close it for a moment to recompose myself. And although there is redemption and hope in Beah’s eventual rescue and rehabilitation, what sickens me is that this is a true story. Boys as young as eight or nine years old were drugged with cocaine, handed machine guns, and convinced that their self-worth was found in how many people they could kill in a day’s time. I was so ignorantly unaware that this country had suffered such violent conflict for so many years. So yes, this was a worthwhile read. Inform yourself.
This book came highly recommended by Shane, and I was looking forward to getting into a real page-turner. It is the true story of the building of the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893, intertwined with the story of a serial killer who used the fair as a lure for many of his victims. Intriguing… But the book was often overly factual, so ridden with real-life accounts that I had a hard time really getting into the story. It was all very interesting, but I’ve mentioned before that I like to really connect with a book’s characters and get lost in the story, and I had a hard time doing that in the midst of so many details and dates. Nonetheless, it was a good read – I can appreciate the feat that was undertaken by the architects who were given just a couple of years to design and construct this miniature city inside of Chicago. And knowing that the things you’re reading about truly did happen certainly elevates the intensity of events, so I guess I’m torn. Fict or fact?
East of Eden was our April book club pick – after a couple of relatively quick, fun, “modern†novels, we felt we were due for something with a bit more depth and literary merit (whatever that means). Yes, the length of this book was daunting, and yes, there were times when I felt I had to trudge through Steinbeck’s detailed descriptions of the Salinas Valley, but there were also times when I found myself becoming completely absorbed in the lives of the characters and their constant battles between good and evil. By the time I got to the end of the book, I really felt like I’d been on a journey with a couple of the main characters – like I’d come alongside them in their joys and struggles. This feeling of investment is the sign of a good book to me, and so I’m giving this one 4 stars out of 5. And it’s nice to finish a novel with a real sense of accomplishment, with the belief that I am now a more well-rounded reader. I just wish I fully understood all of the parallels between East of Eden and the book of Genesis – where is my high school English teacher when I need him? Mr. Huth, if you’re out there, some of this was over my head…
We had our second book club meeting last Saturday, and our February reading assignment was The Glass Castle. This collection of the author’s memoirs tells of a life that was marked by poverty and parental neglect. Heart-breaking, painful, and infuriating when parents refuse to play the role of parents. Makes me appreciate my relatively normal childhood. Stability was always something I took for granted – I never thought to be thankful for the fact that my dad never lit the Christmas tree on fire, my mom never relied on me to get her out of bed and to work in the morning, and I never had to fret over where or when I would find my next meal. Passages like this one made me cringe:
“Once, when an extra-big royalty check came in, Mom bought us a whole canned ham. We ate off it for days, cutting thick slices for sandwiches. Since we had no refrigerator, we left the ham on a kitchen shelf. After it had been there for about a week, I went to saw myself a slab at dinnertime and found it crawling with little white worms. Mom was sitting on the sofa bed, eating the piece she’d cut. ‘Mom, that ham’s full of maggots,’ I said. ‘Don’t be so picky,’ she told me. ‘Just slice off the maggoty parts. The inside’s fine.’ ”
But hope is found in the fact that despite the struggle of living in poverty with an alcoholic father and a self-absorbed mother, the author and her siblings band together to overcome the tragedy of their circumstances. Walls’ life seems to be a true tribute to resilience and self-empowerment.
This book tells the amazing true-life story of Greg Mortenson – a man who has devoted his life to promoting peace in Pakistan and Afghanistan primarily through building schools and educating children. His story is both both inspiring and daunting. Inspiring because it demonstrates the change that one selfless man can inflict. Daunting because it demonstrates the change that one selfless man can inflict. So much for using “I’m only one person” as an excuse for sitting on my butt… When you are willing to set aside your wants and needs and personal comfort, you are freed to focus on the lives of others, to empower them and bless them and make their lives better.
I love Mortenson’s attitude toward the fight against terrorism – it’s not about scare tactics, or weaponry, or implementation of American culture and systems. It’s about providing the often-desperate impoverished people in these rural areas of Pakistan with an alternative to the existing Muslim schools which often exclude girls and indoctrinate young boys with extremist beliefs. It’s about respecting other cultures, empowering them with the knowledge of a well-rounded education, trading our arrogance for humility. So much easier said than done, I understand, but isn’t it clear that the U.S. government’s current approach has not worked? Time to try something else, maybe?
Read this book.
This book was the subject of my very first monthly book club meeting. Several girlfriends and I have decided to read a book together each month and then convene on a Saturday morning for coffee and discussion. Our first book choice, unfortunately, turned out to be rather mediocre, and all of us agreed that we had a hard time really connecting with any of the characters in Run. I’ll spare you any of the uninspiring details. However, I will sing the praises of this whole book club idea. It’s a great motivation to read more, and a fabulous way to regularly connect with friends. I’d say that only about half of our discussion yesterday really focused on the book, but that was ok, because I’m in this for the friendship-building more than anything else. And it was neat to hear other how other women’s interpretations and impressions differed from my own (though we all generally agreed that this was a so-so read overall). Shane and I have been blessed with a wonderful group of common friends here in Seattle (rather than the my friends/his friends situation we had in California), but there is still great value in taking time to just hang with the ladies. And the fact that we’ve chosen meet at Macrina Bakery, which serves the most fantastic lemon lavender coffee cake, definitely doesn’t hurt things…
I was determined to read this book before watching the movie, and now that I’ve finished it, it’s hard to believe that a film version could live up to the written piece. Much of The Kite Runner is set against the backdrop of a poverty-stricken and oppressive Afghanistan – a picture so devastating that I want to believe it was exaggerated for the sake of drama. But the more I look into the power and practices of the Taliban movement, the more I fear that the scene set in this story isn’t too far removed from what so many Afghans have experienced. It’s horrific. Sickening, really.
But as a counterpoint the devastation his country has seen, the author brings to light the beauty that can be found in the Afghan culture and family traditions. Of course, I should be wary of relying on fictitious novels as a reliable source for actual events and customs, but I do believe this book offered a glimpse into a side of Afghan life that I otherwise never would have experienced. A good read. Sad, to say the least, but intertwined with just the faintest glimmer of hope.
I’m such a sucker for these female-solidarity, strong-women-making-it-on-their-own types of novels. Charms for the Easy Life is the story of a girl, her mother, and her grandmother living life together during the trying times of World War II. These women are unlike anyone you’ve ever met, but still somehow incredibly real. The grandmother is this headstrong, quirky doctor without a license who removes warts at dinner parties and always speaks her mind. The mother is dramatic and glamorous. And the daughter is quiet, bright, and a thoughtful narrator. This was a beautiful story – heartfelt, but not sappy, and cleverly balanced with humor and drama. Two thumbs up.
A friend of mine saw that I was reading A Clockwork Orange and remarked, “Wow, I didn’t know you were so dark…” Well, I didn’t know that this book was so dark when I picked it up a month ago. Brutal beatings, intoxication, vandalism, rape, all within the first couple of chapters. If I were watching the movie, I would have closed my eyes through many of these violent scenes. But since it is difficult to get through a book with your eyes closed, I pushed through. And as I read on, I understood that this wasn’t violence for violence’s sake, but it was the set-up to a very difficult question: can true “reform” be forced upon a criminal, and if so, should it be done without any regard to what it actually costs the reformed? This brutal, remorseless narrator is brainwashed and manipulated into a weak, sniveling, choice-less shell of a man that has very little control over his actions and state of mind. Is this progress? At least this now-spineless being isn’t physically or emotionally capable of hurting anyone other than himself, but is it humane to strip a person of their ability to make choices? Big questions. A good read.