The Coffee Trader

I read this because my husband really enjoys David Liss's writing and suggested I might like it. I rarely read anything he does (because I am not interested in all the ins and outs of wars, how to be a spy or navy seal, or how differences in Teslas improve MRI imaging), but I thought this might be a great crossover book - give us something to talk about at the table.

This is a manly book. The narrator follows Miguel Lienzo, a Portuguese Jew living in Amsterdam during the 17th century, who had escaped the Inquisition and now trades future commodities on the Dutch stock exchange. Miguel has lost all his fortune in the sugar trade and is currently living in his brother's damp basement, but has recently been introduced by an independent and ambitious Dutch widow to a relatively unheard of commodity: coffee. However, the Ma'amad, a ruling council of Jews, forbids all Jews from meeting with the Dutch in public (only one of many, many outlandish rules), which forces Miguel to create an intricate web of deceipt to carry out his ultimate goal of cornering the market and creating a European coffee monopoly, an act which would ultimately would make him a very, very rich man.

Ethics questions abound throughout the book as Miguel, the Ma'amad, the Dutch and all of society manipulate the rules in order to accomplish their own personal goals. At what point of these manipulation does the line of morality get crossed?

My husband liked the book because it contains a thriller-like tempo in regards to trading futures. Yes, I did just include the word "thriller" in a sentence describing economics. Who would have thought?

Well...David Liss did, and it sort of works. He manages to write the desperation and anxiety exchange trading involves, and even manges to write about the complexities of such a market without being overly technical or vague. However, in the end, it was still a novel about economics...and that, apparently, is one more thing I'm not interested in reading about.

Everything Is Illuminated

This book is hard to piece together. It's even harder to write about.

If Everything Is Illuminated had to be categorized onto one shelf, I'd assign it a spot alongside other books about the holocaust. Or maybe about love. No, it's about friendship. Scratch that...it's really about loneliness.

Whatever it actually is about, Jonathan Safran Foer seems to be too odd of a man, and definitely too odd of an author, to define the book or narrow its focus. The minute the reader does, Foer changes the tempo and direction of the book. Sometimes, the stories of cruelty are cover-your-eyes horrible. Sometimes, the situations are uncomfortably obscene. Sometimes, the story and characters are folklorist-y bizarre. Sometimes, it's modern-age hilarious. A lot of the time, it's furrow-your-brow confusing. Everything definitely did not get illuminated for me.

With broad, sweeping strokes, I'll attempt to give a basic summary of the book. A young 20 year-old Jewish man, whose name also happens to be Jonathan Safran Foer, travels to the Ukraine in an attempt to track down a woman in a photograph named Augustine, who saved his grandfather from the Nazis. To help him, he hires a tour guide/translator named Alex, whose English appears to have been mostly learned directly from a thesaurus. The nouns and verbs he chooses are almost always slightly off, but kind of, sort of close, and the reader is forced to translate almost all of Alex's narrative into actual English. Part of the book is written as letters from Alex to Jonathan as explanations for his translations and editions. Some of it is what the character Jonathan Safran Foer writes as his novel (after his return from his trip) and some of it is narrative of the actual trip, given by Alex. When the parts are put together as a whole novel, the reader is forced to be quite patient and thorough to finish the book actually understanding all of what happened, and even more willing to be content with its loose ends that will never be tied.

While Alex's broken English can certainly be funny, it slows down the pace of the novel (because it's impossible to read it fast) too much. Thankfully, his conversational skills do improve and his letters to Jonathan towards the end are much more accessible. Additionally, because both Alex and Jonathan are young and male, there is quite a bit of sexual humor that turns out to be quite harmless, and even slightly endearing, but still makes the overall effect a bit R-rated.

There are so many characters to keep track of and I'm not exactly certain if I figured out who was who and if they mattered. Ultimately, I think most didn't matter because, again, I think the take-home message is meant to be about the horrors of the holocaust and how good people can do bad things. If not, then I missed a whole lot.

If you do attempt this book, read it patiently. It might help to read it as part of a group effort. Then, perhaps if you're able to talk it through and everyone brings their own understanding into a collective whole, everything about this novel might actually BECOME illuminated.

Time Traveler's Wife

I originally read this about five years ago when it was a super popular best seller and absolutely loved it. I recall recommending it freely, only to be chagrined later on with the realization that the book is really not intended for the sensitive reader. With my first reading, Niffenegger managed to "smoke and mirror" her way around the book's frequent crude language and descriptive love scenes because Time Traveler's plot was so incredibly original.

After attempting a discussion with a friend who very recently read it, I realized most of my memory of the book was too faded for a legitimate conversation. I picked up the enormous hardbound copy at the library and quickly found myself escaping in the tricky time traveling romance and doomed love story once again. It really is such a fantastic idea and when I finished, I found myself still scratching my head in wonder about how Niffenegger got the idea for this book in the first place, and feeling slightly overwhelmed by its desperate ending.

The smoke and mirrors weren't as effective the second time around, however, as I felt more offended by the crude language used by both Clare and Henry. I'm not a prude who regards all language as inappropriate, and think sometimes the character's background or emotional outburst warrants the feeling such language manages to evoke. But it felt really unnecessary most of the time. Clare and Henry are both such smart characters, so capable of better verbs and adjectives. Additionally, neither seems particularly rash or impetuous - so their casual dropping of vulgar words only seemed...vulgar.

If you care about those things, you probably won't enjoy this book. If you can justify looking past it to read a story unlike anything you've ever read, you might just love this book. I did.

Consequences

This book tried to be deeper than it was. It's theme of "one small decision can change the future for generations" isn't the mind boggling concept the literary world thinks it is. Of course our decisions change the future. Duh.

The author, Penelope Lively, attempts to connect three generations of women, grandmother to granddaughter, through art. The art mentioned was significant to Lorna, a woman raised in a pre World War II upper middle class family, because she chose a completely different life than her parents by marrying an artist and choosing to live a simple, old fashioned way of life in a humble cottage in the country. Matt and Lorna's are simplistically happy, in spite of their poverty, until Matt is tragically killed in the war, leaving behind a young daughter, Molly. While Matt's pieces of work become quite valuable later on and periodically appear in the lives of his daughter and granddaughter, the appearances seem to be nothing more than a prop gimmick and not as consequential to the life decisions Molly and Molly's daughter, Ruth, as Lively leads her readers to think. These "twists of fate" she often produced for her characters instead seemed to me to be much more likely the result of their unorthodox childhoods.

Consequences is a decent book with very good descriptive writing, but even that doesn't make up for its weak plot. Individually, the women's stories were interesting and had some great development, but the overall effect of including all three in one story produces a rushed and thin result.

Great Expectations

As my husband got into bed last night and looked over to see what I was reading, he said, "You're still reading Great Expectations?" I admit that I have not been able to plow through this book. Instead, I have taken many, many detours and interspersed three different, easier-to-read books along the way. I finally finished last night, after about three weeks of off and on reading. Still, I have to say that it's a wonderful book. Like many wonderful books, it should be included on some list called"Great Books That Are Boring". As this was my first attempt reading Dickens's fiction ( also to be considered semi auto-biographical) and I was surprised by how much I loved it but even more surprised by how much I hated it.

Charles Dickens is my kind of guy. He's funny (tons of humorous parenthetical details that add so much to the story) and he's wordy. In the earlier parts of the book, I found myself thinking, "Finally! A truly funny author! Why have I been assuming I have to read Jennifer Weiner or Sophie Kinsella or even David Sadaris to get a laugh? Dickens is funny!" He also really knows how to paint a scene. From the food to the positions of the characters in a room to someone's smell to how they are feeling, Dickens leaves no detail out. This worked great for me...until I got bored. Then, I felt irritated and impatient and simply wanted to know what was going to happen. Enough with the side comments! Enough.

The story begins with young Pip (thus nicked-named due to his Christian name being Philip Pirrip), a young orphan of seven, being brought up by his cruel older sister and her husband, Joe Gargary. One evening, Pip finds himself in the marshes and is cornered by an escaped convict, Magwitch. With the threat of losing his life, Pip helps the convict escape by bringing him a file he found among blacksmith Joe's tools along with some food. Pip continues in his simple, lower-class lifestyle until he is asked to entertain an old,wealthy spinster, Miss Havisham, and her haughty adopted daughter, Estella. It is through this encounter that Pip learns about the finer things in life and begins to aspire to be a gentleman.

His life is suddenly completely changed when he is informed by Miss Havisham's lawyer that he is to become a gentleman, on behalf of an anonymous benefactor. Assuming this benefactor to be Miss Havisham, and that she did this to allow for a future marriage between himself and Estella, whom he has fallen in love with, he adopts this lifestyle in both thought and deed. This transformation perversely changes many good qualities about Pip and in addition to the refinement and education gained, he also gained an attitude of pride and snobbery.

In the end, when his "great expectations" are destroyed, Pip is left with a decision about what kind of man he is to become without the fortune he anticipated having. The themes, attitudes and moral lessons in this story are timeless and what makes Great Expectations a classic.

While Dickens's wordiness gets in the way of the story at times, his gift of weaving life lessons into a narrative ultimately makes it worth the effort. Yes...even a three-week effort.

Don't You Marry The Mormon Boys

The book jacket's summary of Janet Jensen's debut novel, Don't You Marry The Mormon Boys, describes a story about two people from different backgrounds and belief systems (Andy is mainstream LDS and Louisa was raised in a polygamous fundamentalist community) who fall in love at medical school but face overwhelming obstacles in an effort to be together.

That was the story I was expecting and found myself disappointed with the story I was actually given. Andy and Louisa do, in fact, face these obstacles, but it is never the focus of the story. In fact, were it not for a few flashbacks to medical school, there is no mention of these two main characters together in the same chapter, much less the same plot for the first 200 pages. Andy does his rural, family practice medical thing in Kentucky, which seems a completely unnecessary setting to me (unless the far fetched and wholly irrelevant ending was somehow important to the story of Andy and Louisa's journey....which it is not), and Louisa returns to her polygamous community to realize that her eyes have been changed to the situation around her after eight years of living away from it.

Sure there are a few wistful thoughts, memories and even dreams about the other, but the reason for their attraction, or friendship, is never explained. Andy thought she was beautiful, in spite of her plain, long ankle length dress, and crowning glory long hair, but apparently pursued a relationship with her because she was so smart and he wanted to study with her. (????) The reader is never given any information about Louisa's feelings towards Andy. There is simply an assumption that because she spent time with him, she fell in love with him. The hows and the whys are not worth mentioning, I suppose. Without that development of their relationship for the readers to hold onto, I didn't yearn for these two to be together. As their individual stories don't actually intersect until page 197, a little yearning would have been nice. But, that doesn't seem to be the point of the book.

The thing I liked most about this novel was Jensen's humanistic portrayal of polygamous families. It's always troubled me that the media, pop culture and even the mainstream LDS church portray them as crazy, mindless followers without any thought or choice about their lifestyle. Jensen shows a side of their families and individuals who honestly believe what they practice, and that they do it for the same reason a lot of us do whatever it is we do - because we think it's what God has commanded us to do. I also appreciated the look inside their culture...from the need to protect themselves from outsiders to the organizations of their households. Considering the current events going on in Texas, it adds a deeper understanding to the story. But, that doesn't seem to be the point of the book either.

It isn't all sunshine, however, and as Louisa's eyes are opened to the real problems of their community (abuse, incest, birth defects, depression) she becomes a target of opposition to the community - particularly to the Council of Brethren, who seem like old, scary, mean men without a compassionate bone in their bodies. Again, this black and white portrayal of the community's leadership seems too clean and villainous to be true. Surely, there are some members who are able to be something other than completely dogmatic. It doesn't matter, though, because, once again, this conflict with Louisa does not seem to be the point of the book.

In the end, I'm not sure what the point is, or was supposed to be. Andy and Louisa seem more like conduits for the author to expound on the quirks and habits of rural Kentucky and polygamy than actual characters. The part of the story where they are actually together and communicating and conflicting only warrants 40 or so pages. Then the story jumps tracks and heads off in an entirely new direction - one I won't mention because it will seem like I am reviewing another book. I felt like it was a different book.

I guess I feel mostly disappointed because I didn't get the story I was promised. I didn't get Andy and Louisa's story. Not really.

Hope Was Here

I feel like the big grown up bully attacking the cute, freckled face kid on the playground with this review. However, as a Newberry Medal Honor Book, the playground kind of turns more into a raquetball court and the kid has to be good to play in it. Consider me goggled, racquet in hand, and donning my wrist sweat bands for serious play.

I really don't understand how this is a Newberry Medal Honor Book. The characters were flat and one-dimensional, the plot predictable and the message was d...more I feel like the big grown up bully attacking the cute, freckled face kid on the playground with this review. However, as a Newberry Medal Honor Book, the playground kind of turns more into a raquetball court and the kid has to be good to play in it. Consider me goggled, racquet in hand, and donning my wrist sweat bands for serious play.

I really don't understand how this is a Newberry Medal Honor Book. The characters were flat and one-dimensional, the plot predictable and the message was dangerously simplified. I'm left to guess what age group Bauer wrote this for. The abandonment issues the protagonist, Hope, experiences are too mature for young elementary age and older, middle school and high school aged adolescents certainly can grasp the concept of a flawed character or even impure motives. She most certainly didn't write it for a 32 year-old moderate who found the obvious bias of kind-hearted liberal vs. heartless, evil conservative over-the-top and unhelpful for any honest discussion about politics.

I didn't hate it. How can you hate G.T. and his good-guy-leukemia-fighter-town-fixer-upper-cook self? I couldn't. I couldn't even hate Hope, and her far-older-than-actual-sixteen-year-old-mentality even though I never understood her, or her motivation to become so politically involved (because the author never let us know that. She just wrote Hope that way).

I'll take off my goggles now and lob poor freckled face a few serves. It was a nice story. The boy got the girl. The good guy wins. The food was good and hot. The end.

God Wants A Powerful People

I've always considered myself a Sheri Dew fan. Loved her biography of President Gordan B. Hinckley. Her book, No Doubt About It, is truly one of my favorites. I love her strength. I love her leadership. I love her honesty.

However, I did not love this book. It seems beyond sacrilege to not love a church book, especially one with such a message, although I do admit to loving many parts of it. Her masterful references to scriptures, appropriate analogies to really drive a point home and self-deprication are spot on, as usual.

But, there is a judgmental tone throughout the book that left a slight unpleasant feeling afterwards. For instance, there is a part of the book where she is talking about our power and being powerful (I know...shocker) and mentions a young adult (or young woman. I can't quite remember) coming up to her after her talk to thank her for her message and how touched and motivated she was. All Sheri Dew seemed to notice was how the girl was dressed. Apparently, her dress standards weren't as stringent as a 50 year old woman and I felt sad that she pointed it out in her book. It made her story...less. Yes, bring up modesty and all of its power, but don't do it that way. Judging someone without their knowledge is never fair. I just didn't like it.

There are a few more instances, one involving overhearing other women at her workplace (which, I assume, is Deseret Book) discussing an Oprah show and her interrupting the conversation by quizzing them on how it compared to a certain General Authority's talk on the subject matter. Of course, they didn't know, or couldn't remember and she admits feeling disgusted and disappointed with these women for not knowing. Perhaps it's the knowledge that I also could never live up to her personal standards that has me feeling judged and combative, but there is a slight tinge of rancor throughout the entire book. It isn't solely uplifting, or encouraging. At least, not without pulling some others down along the way.

Lastly, she refers many times to some extremely difficult circumstances in her personal life. It's always vague and always...unhelpful. I feel like, if you're going to use something as an example, explain it. Don't dance around it. And if you don't want to share, don't. Only sort of, kind of, hinting of your problems isn't really sharing them.

Obviously, there is much good stuff. I probably should have focused on that in my review, but sadly, the power of the book was weakened considerably by my inability to get past the negative and her inability to solely focus on the positive

Here Be Dragons

I love to read other people's favorite books. Amy M. recommended this to me, although I don't think she described it as her favorite. Just a book she had read a long time ago that she remembered loving. Having never even heard of it before, I pulled out my super reading powers and gave it a whirl.

First, this is NOT an easy read. The edition I checked out contained more than 700 thin pages of small print. Second, it's historical fiction about a time in history I had no prior knowledge of - 13th century England and Wales. Lastly, there are many, many characters to keep track of, most with unusual names and many being interrelated.

All these difficulties aside, I really enjoyed this story. At its heart is the love story between Llewelyn, Prince of North Wales who later became known as Llewelyn the Great of Wales, and his bride, Joanna, the illegitimate daughter of England's King John. Its development and conflict anchors a story that is forced to span war after war after battle after skirmish after war. Really, these ancient leaders never stopped fighting.

The title, Here Be Dragons, describes a map making technique used long ago. When map makers had limited or no knowledge of certain areas, they wrote, "Here be dragons" on the area with drawings of the mythical creatures to describe this unknown danger.

Both the Welsh people and the Norman-french, who currently held the English crown (really, it's all very interesting) were suspicious of the other and held strong prejudices against any of its citizens. The marriage, which could have and should have brought about peace between the two nations, only put Joanna, who loved both her Norman-French/English father and eventually her charismatic Welsh husband, in the middle.

After I finished reading, I spent a good deal of time researching the accuracy of the facts presented in the book. Many, if not most, are true. Obviously, the fiction comes from the interplay between characters and description of feelings, which can't ever be wholly known, but I think the author did a great job of infusing historical figures with life. The struggles over choosing heirs and the family feuds that any transfer of power creates, were believable and likely.

Most importantly, when applying this history lesson to our current times, I realized human nature doesn't change much...even eight-hundred years later. The names of the countries may have changed but we still believe there are dragons over in the unknown. We still use power and ignorance to fuel our wars and pride and wounded egos to justify them.

Will the human race ever grow up? Time with continue to tell. In the meantime, I'm happy I read this smart, complex and excellent book.

The Kommandant's Girl

I mentioned when I wrote my review on The Book Thief, how dismayed I felt when realizing the story was set in WWII Germany. The market for fictional stories of the war, especially the persecution and massacre of the Jews, seems to have been saturated.

The Book Thief surprised me with its fresh and irreverent approach to story telling. The Kommandant's Girl, on the other hand, stuck to the game plan and told a very conservative and unimaginative story.

To be fair, the book is set in Poland, not Germany, and the story is based on a real life story the author discovered while doing her research in Poland.

Emma Bau, a newlywed whose husband has escaped to help the resistance movement, finds herself in the Jewish Ghetto living with her parents. During one night, she is awoken and smuggled out of the ghetto and set up to live as Anna Lipowski with her husband's non-Jewish aunt. At a dinner party one evening, Emma/Anna meets Kommandant Georg Richwalder, a high ranking Nazi party member, and his attraction to her leads to his hiring her to be his assistant. As his assistant, she is expected to and in fact, wants to, help the resistance by acting as a spy whenever she can. To Jenoff's credit, she attempts to give her characters depth by allowing Emma/Anna to become attracted and attached to the Kommandant, understandable considering the short length of her relationship with her husband, and considering the kind of man Kommandant Richwalder appeared to be: fair, hard working and heartbroken from his wife's earlier suicide. As their relationship progresses, she is ultimately asked to betray her marriage vows and use her relationship with the Kommandant to gain urgent information for the resistance.

The story is interesting and even well told (except for the end when the author tried to tie up too many loose strings for plot purposes), but that interesting and well told story has already been done. Many times. Unfortunately for Jenoff, whether this particular story is true or not doesn't make its telling any more consequential. In spite of its familiarity, I'd recommend Pam Jenoff's account to anyone who hasn't reached their own threshold of World War II Jewish fiction.

Look Me In The Eye

In a day when a cure is expected for nearly every ailment, flaw or disorder, I was struck by John Elder Robinson's assertion that those with Asperger's Syndrome, a neurobiological disorder on the autism spectrum that the author lived with undiagnosed until he was forty, needs no cure - only understanding.

Robinson starts his story with his earliest memories -a failed attempt to make friends in a sandbox - and meanders through his shame at being called a deviant and a psychopath because he avoided eye contact (although his explanation about how he still doesn't understand most people's need to stare at somebody's eyeball while speaking to them is hilarious), leaving home in the middle of his teenage years, finding himself as part of the 70s rock scene and creating flaming guitars for KISS, faking his way through a job interview for a position as an engineer and getting it by reading and memorizing books about the subject, his parallel struggle to "be a team player" through out his career, until he finally arrives at understanding and acceptance for both his gifts and oddities.

Although this book contains many fascinating stories that stem from his dysfunctional childhood rather than his Asperger's Syndrome, Robinson's experiences and viewpoint sheds a great deal of light on an "Aspergian's" way of thinking. I have a nephew who has been diagnosed with Asperger's and a brother and sister-in-law who constantly seek balance between his way of seeing things and their own understanding. I found myself asking my sister-in-law the question, "Do you think he needs a cure?" Who is to say? Robinson made clear in his book that while he has learned a great deal about appropriate social responses through trial and error, he still finds them unnatural and really, more to the point, unnecessary. What is normal? How much of life's successes are social? What parts of our own personalities should be fixed? I mean, I can't imagine an enjoyable existence where we are all the same.

But, if Asperger's Syndrome falls on the Autism Spectrum, and we observe those with the kinds of autism that render them completely unable to connect to the outside world, certainly we feel they miss out on opportunities for relationships and meaningful experiences. Certainly we would choose a cure, if there was one to be found. So at what point of the spectrum do we intercede?

These are simply the questions that I had after reading this book. You may or may not have similar kinds. However, if you get a chance to read this illuminating book, you will definitely have a glimpse into a colorful and fascinating life.

Smile!

I just got an email telling me I won the Good Read's April Good Review's contest in the category of Fiction for my review of A Thousand Splendid Suns. I didn't even know there was a contest! In fact, I just wrote that review for my blog and then cut and pasted it into GoodReads. The whole first two paragraphs about how I bought the book in Taiwan and didn't feel like reading it and yada, yada, yada seem so....superfluous. I feel a little like I just got caught on Candid Camera and, thankfully, didn't do anything really embarrassing. I mean, it's totally flattering. I am flattered. But...now...I mean...now...I know the camera may be on and I feel a bit like I should look the part of a book reviewer. You know...not write book reviews in my pajamas. I at least need a pencil behind my ear.

I thought this was funny considering what my last post was about. Add "may unknowingly win an award on the world wide web" to my commercial about writing book reviews.

They gave me $20 at Amazon.com.

Dream big, people, dream big.

How And Why

People often ask me, "How do you read so many books?"

I understand that anyone who asks this already knows the answer: I spend a lot of time reading. Ta-da!

I'm left wondering what they really want to know. Are they asking if I ignore my children (sometimes) or if I have a really messy house (not extremely...but I admit that the Queen of Clean does not feel her crown is threatened by me)? Are they asking me if I have some sort of superpower (of course) or if I only skim the books I review (very rarely...because what's the point of reading if you don't care about the details)?

I also understand why they are asking. I ask the same question all the time to other people. Only I ask about different things. How do you stay so organized? How do you manage to be so thin? How do you always have the perfect piece of jewelry for every outfit?

I think we all want to hear that this person has more hours in the day, more money, more support, more....anything...than we personally do because then we could justify why we can't or don't do it too.

But, I believe the answer to all of these questions is....we do it because it's something that's important to us.

Reading, and being a reader, is important to me.

There are times I wish I had others' priorities. I wish I cared more about my body. I wish I couldn't sit still until my bed was made and my sink sparkling. I wish every time I had a reason to dress up, I had the perfect pair of shoes to match a fabulous necklace.

I wish....but, instead...I read. It's my hobby. And I've come to terms that it's an o.k. hobby, flabby stomach and all purpose black sandals notwithstanding.

Looking back, I've always been a reader and throughout my adolescence, enjoyed spending many of my free Saturdays and Sundays reading all day. I have memories of wearing my super stylish green sweatpants and coming upstairs for the first time late in the day after reading in my bedroom for five or six straight hours.

Additionally, I am fortunate to be blessed with a gift...a wonderful gift. A gift that limits its benefits to me only. I enjoy the gift of being able to become completely absorbed by a good book. I don't hear someone talking to (or shouting at) me. I don't hear the phone ring. I don't get sleepy or bored or feel the need to stretch and walk around for a bit. This gift limits itself to a good novel, mind you. My gifts seem to evaporate when I attempt non-fiction or poetry. I'm as handicapped as the rest of the world when it comes to those.

When I started blogging and first posted my book reviews, I immediately discovered the bonus of writing about what I read.

To begin with, writing book reviews turned a hobby into a goal. During my first year of blogging, I set a goal to read fifty books in a year. Nine and a half months later, I finished my fiftieth book and immediately began the next year's goal of reading seventy-five books.

Having a set number mattered to me. That magical number of fifty or seventy-five always kept me reading but more importantly, it kept me reading better books. As I knew I'd be writing about each book, I've been much better at choosing a wider variety of literature, including much more non-fiction than I would normally read, and staying away from an abundance of chick lit, beach reads, mysteries and tawdry romances. I still read them...occasionally...but having a person or two looking over my shoulder at what I'm reading makes for much more deliberate decision making.

Another bonus is that I can remember what I've read for much longer if I've written down what I thought about it. I've enjoyed developing the talent of writing a book review. Some of my reviews are much better than others, but like any talent, I feel I've gotten better the more I've practiced. With some books, now, I can see parts of my review while I'm reading. In other words, sometimes, I know what I'll get out of it even as I'm getting it.

Amazingly, I can vividly remember books I've read almost two years ago, mostly because the two or three paragraphs I took the time to jot down afterwards jogs my memories much more than reading what somebody else wrote about it on amazon.com. Really, this ability to talk about a book or character from a book I've read in the past, has made me appear much more educated and in the know than I really am. It's a super party trick.

Lastly, like anyone, I feel good when I accomplish a goal. I have until the 10th of May to get to book 75 and as of today, I have read 81. It took dedication to read 81 books in a little more than eleven months. Many times, I chose to read over watching T.V. or renting a movie. Although, I admit it also helps that our social life has been dramatically reduced by the fact that we have no couple friends besides family and many of our weekends begin with the question, "Do you want to watch a movie or would you rather read?" Jay and I sure know how to par-tay.

So, if you want to know how I read as much as I do...this is how.

I read almost every night.
I read a lot on Sundays.
I stay up late to finish a book.
Sometimes, I'll read during the day.
I shop only when necessity dictates that I have to.
I don't craft.
I don't mind if I don't go anywhere most days.
I like to travel and can get much reading done on a plane.
I'm not much of a phone talker.
I don't believe my primary role as a mother is to entertain my children. Teach, guide, cuddle with, listen to and nurture...yes. Entertain...no.
I (usually) pick books that interest me so that I actually want to read them.
I can read fast.


There you go. That's how and why I read as much as I do. If, per chance, you've asked me this question in the past, please don't feel like I wish you hadn't. Honestly, it's been good for me to discover the roots of my motivation. If I sound defensive, I'm not. Well...maybe I am a little. But, I try not to be because I do understand that it's easiest to spend our time doing the things we're good at. The trick, I think, is to spend our time doing things we should be good at.

Thankfully, that's not my area of expertise.

Blind Spot

There is a table, smack dab in the middle of the library I go to, promoting over twenty "reader's choice" books. You read, you vote, and if you read enough your name is entered into a drawing for a prize. I first noticed the table when Shannon Hale's Austenland was displayed but hadn't heard of any of the other titles or authors before. Thinking to myself that I liked Austenland so, perhaps I would like the others as well.

This is not a good table for me. Karma Girl, which was my first selection from the table, seems to have only brought bad reading Karma. None of these books are horrible, just none very good either. And I can't help wondering why libraries are promoting "just o.k" books. Aren't they supposed to be professionals?

Blind Spot is about a female FBI detective, Bernadette St. Clair, who has been able to "see" what killers see ever since her twin was killed by a drunk driver. The FBI, embarrassed by her, but unwilling to dismiss her gift, moves her around from town to town to solve difficult homicide cases. The trouble is, since she can only see what the killer sees, she doesn't usually know what the killer looks like, unless he or she happens to look in a mirror. In addition, she doesn't know when her visions are occurring, as in real time, or not. As a result, she has made mistakes in cases before, making her crime solving skills a liability.

All this I can handle. The premise is interesting enough. What makes this book subpar is that the author goes a step too far in making odd Bernadette into a crazy, ridiculous, way-too-unlikely-to-be-real character. Besides that, the reader knows who the killer is very early on in the book, so the chapters describing her visions are unnecessary - the narrator already took us there.

Anti climatic with a far fetched ending, I can't recommend this one.

Franny and Zooey

More of a play than a novel, Salinger creates two dissatisfied intellectuals and their fall out with convention resulting from their unorthodox education and childhood.

The book is divided into two parts: Franny's shorter section and a much longer section devoted to her older brother, Zooey.

Franny Glass, the youngest child of the fictional upper class New York family, breaks down after spending the weekend with her pretentious boyfriend, Lane. Lane seems to be the face of everything she decides to be wrong with life. Pretense, insincerity, knowledge without wisdom, and ego, ego, ego contrast drastically with a book she stumbled upon in her brother Seymour's room about a pilgrim who discovers how to pray unceasingly. With her own exposure to world religions at an early age, the book's idea takes hold of her and she ends up at her parent's home, crying and muttering to herself.

Zooey Glass, a somewhat successful actor with contradictions of his own, talks his way through helping Franny. Through his monologues, the reader is able to understand the trouble with knowing so much and trying to reconcile it all in order to successfully function in society. The conclusion he reaches isn't exactly tidy or startling, but the arguments that get both of them there are entertaining and provide much to discuss.

Unconventional with its sparse narrative and long-winded conversations, I was surprised by how much I liked this.

If Life Is A Bowl Of Cherries, What Am I Doing In The Pits?

I think I want to be Erma Bombeck. I can't believe she didn't start writing until she was 37. I loved her opinions about motherhood and amusing antidotes about being a woman.

While some chapters of this book are outdated, like the chapter devoted to game shows (very 70s), some are timeless and supplied me with funny fuel for some of my longer days.

The Alchemist's Daughter

Very hard to get into, but worth the effort. The story is made difficult with lots of ancient scientific theory about alchemy and discussions about the various philosophies propagated in the 18th century about air and fire. That kind of discussion doesn't make for easy reading, but if you can manage to get through it, the underlying story about innocence, nature vs. nurture, death and redemption are all very interesting. Throw in a heart wrenching romance and I found that I quite liked it.

The Rule Of Four

This book wasn't anything it claimed to be. It muddled through the mystery, which tried a little to be like The Da Vinci Code - without that thrill or urgency. It muddled through the characters (four of them so the title could have multiple meanings, although two of the characters were purely sidenotes). Ultimately, it muddled through its great reveal. I still don't understand the actual rule of four, which was a code used to discover a secret text in an ancient book called the Hynerotromachia Poliphili.

Difficult to read, wordy, and ultimately not interesting enough for a 400 page book. But, it had its moments of interest...not many, but some (I learned quite a bit about Princeton).

The Simeon Solution

This book had two strikes against it before I even started to read it. First, my husband brought it home from the library and told me, "You should read this." The author is a radiologist he works with whose name I have heard and seen on his many radiology textbooks. Unfortunately, we have rather different tastes when it comes to book choices and both of us have been burned by this seemingly harmless advice. When I read its description on the inside jacket, my inner ump cried, Strike Two! It's a non-fiction, inspirational church book.

Why that's a strike, I have no idea. I only know I have a hard time getting through books like this. They invariably seem redundant and turn into a really long relief society lesson in my mind. Always a good message, but rarely anything I haven't heard before, or even thought of before. Yes, it's always good to have reminders, but when it comes to reading, I'm usually in too much of a hurry to trudge through a message book. I know. I have a serious failing here.

This book was in no danger of striking out, however, after I read the first two pages of the introduction. Anne Osborn Poelman's voice is clear, intelligent, interesting, funny and honest. I was completely drawn into her story and finished this short book within a couple of hours. Very, very enjoyable. Oh...I'll just add one more very. Very!

While this book was published 13 years ago, I wish it were more well known amid reading circles today. How applicable this book is to my generation! Or to any church member of any age. The thing I admired most about it was the fact that a highly intelligent professional woman didn't intellectualize her faith. In fact, she explains incredibly reasonably how she lives by an almost opposite principle, which she calls The Simeon Solution. Simeon was a High Priest briefly mentioned in the New Testament who had been promised by the Holy Ghost that he would meet the Messiah. Much later in life, he is prompted to go to the temple and sees Joseph and Mary there with the Christ child, knows that the promise was fulfilled. (Luke 2:29-32) By this time, he was very old, and must have lived an entire lifetime on that brief bit of knowledge or inspiration he had earlier in life. How easy it would have been to doubt his faith after years and years of waiting. Most of his peers did. Many ridiculed anyone who believed in something that they certainly did not know "for sure" would ever happen - the coming of a Messiah. But Simeon remembered the promise he had from the Lord, and recognized its fulfillment. Similarly, Anne Osborn Poelman realized her faith was much like Simeon's. During a lively discussion of faith at a dinner party, questions were directed to her wondering how she justified being a member of a sexist faith that "withholds" the priesthood from women. Her answer, with support from another guest at the party who helped explain how she felt into a concrete idea, is the basis of the book. So simple, yet so easy to dismiss. It's about having a testimony that the Lord fulfills his promises.

Osborn Poelman uses her own conversion, which happened DURING medical school, and her later trials that came with being a new member, a single sister, a world famous radiologist, and a married-later-in-life to a general authority woman. I don't think this book will disappoint anyone. It's perfect for those who are looking for more than a pat on the back but simple and clear enough for those who are looking for encouragement in an increasingly intellectual literary crowd.

The Double Bind

While this book was cleverly written and startled me by its end, (hey...I did have it figured out about 7/8ths of the way through. Yes...I'm quite the sleuth.) I was left unsatisfied by the big reveal and don't believe it brought the book the resolution it needed.

The Double Bind weaves the classic The Great Gatsby into the tragic story of a girl trying to recover mentally and physically after she was brutally attacked by two men while on a bicycle ride through a forest in Vermont. When a homeless man dies at the shelter she works at and leaves a box of photographs of the rich and famous from earlier decades, she becomes obsessed with figuring out the mystery of who he was, especially as some of the photographs have links to her own childhood and one mysteriously of the day of her attack.

As she loses herself in this homeless man's mental illness and history, she starts to lose her own frail grasp of reality in her tightly controlled world of work, love and friendship.

I wish I had the energy to go back and see if the author is really consistent with his story. My memory doubts that he could be, and I have lots of "but what about"s rolling around in my head. But, I have to hand it to him, he got me.

This reminded me of The Thirteenth Tale in its rhythmic uncovering of the past and surprise ending, but it's much more brutal and much less polished. I loved rediscovering the classic Gatsby and this book made me want to read Fitzgerald's masterpiece all over again.

This is a very suitable choice for a spirited book club discussion.

A Room With A View

I found myself in the rare situation of reading a book after I've watched the movie. Unfortunately, my mind was forced to conform to the images of the actors and actresses playing the parts of George and Lucy and Cecil. Thankfully, they were good images and I was comforted to know that a movie I loved was as good as the book it stemmed from.

Kind of a quirky book for period literature, but I like it all the more because of it. It's funny and honest and satisfying. If you're not up to reading it, rent the movie. It's a fair copy.

Interpreter of Maladies

A book comprising multiple short stories all containing Lahiri's haunting mix of Indian/American blend. If it's true that an author can only write what she knows, the Lahiri must know loneliness, because she writes it so beautifully.

While you might not be up for a party after reading this, you will be in the mood for some quiet reflection. She really captures human emotion in her words.

Karma Girl

This was on a table at my library because it is in the running for a reader's choice award. Gak! No, no, no! If this qualifies for any award, then the criteria for nomination needs to be seriously looked at.

Here's what I wish for: A funny book. A really funny book. That isn't stupid...isn't raunchy...isn't pathetically unimportant. Is that too much to ask? I can tell the author is trying to be witty and interesting. But the result is embarrassing.

Karma Girl follows a jilted woman who discovers her finance is really a superhero having an affair with his nemesis and her best friend. Hurt, she decides to "out" all of the local superheros. But, as superheroes surround her, she finds herself caught up in their world and falling for another masked man.

Obviously, this is a parody or satire of the comic book world, and the author spends ample amount of time and space describing spandex and bad monologues. But it's all too juvenile to be entertaining. I've seen The Incredibles and it's 1000 times more funny.

If anyone knows some really great comedic literature that won't leave me feeling stupider at the end, please let me know. I hope I'm providing a likewise favor by suggesting you avoid wasting time with this book.

Gone For Good

I've decided Harlan Coben is my perfect airplane author. Now that I've finished four of his books, I can say that, like most authors, his books are a bit formulaic, but I like his formula. Likable, clueless guy caught up in a dangerous game that involve his loved ones. Usually turns out sad, but o.k. too. I can deal with that. Especially in the confined space of an airline seat.

Not as good as Into the Woods or Tell No One, but an interesting thriller with plenty of twists.

She May Not Leave

Stupid book. I really should be more willing to put a book down. Unfortunately, there have been just enough that have made it worth it to get to the end that like a rat in a laboratory, I feel like I must finish to see if there is a reward.

No reward here. I have nothing good to say about it. Read this if you're really curious. I can't spend any more time with this book.

Bound On Earth

When I finished the first chapter, I loved this book. Beth is struggling through Thanksgiving with her family after just leaving her husband who suffers from Bipolar disorder and quit taking his medication. By its middle, I had changed my mind. Tina seemed to be every character in a Jack Weyland novel. She does bad things and bad things happen to her. As I turned the last page, I loved it again. Wait a minute. This is it. These are the stories of families trying. Some of their tales are quite extraordinary.

I don't generally read much LDS fiction. I find the stories usually a bit too tidy and my most important qualifier for really good literature is that it be honest. A lot of time, LDS fiction can be fluffy. Yes, there is usually some necessary conflict that involves the bad character doing bad things. By its end, however, the punishment usually fits the crime and when a miracle is in order, it rarely fails to show up.

I saw a recommendation for this book on Blog Segullah and it got such rave reviews from some seemingly picky readers that I requested it from my library. It's brand new and I was the very first person to check it out. If you consider where I live and what kind of book it is, you'll agree that it was a special moment.

At just under 200 pages, this is the kind of book you can easily read in a day or two. I started it last night and have had a hard time putting it down. Bound on Earth follows the Palmer family through many generations, though not chronologically. The chapters bounce around in time and between family members, a writing technique I'm not always super fond of. Part of me thinks it's a shortcut, to eliminate the tricky transitions that progress a plot. But I also admit that as a reader, it can work well to experience multiple first hand narratives; it makes it much easier to get the "BIG" picture. And this is a book that is all about the big picture.

What is marriage? What is family? How do they survive? Do our trials break us apart or bind us together? Hallstrom doesn't cut corners with heartache. The situations she puts her characters in are vividly real, so real that I felt like I knew these people. I do know them. They just have different names.

If you're wary of LDS literature, give this a try. If you are looking for a great book to read with your ward bookgroup, this is your book. Or if you simply want to discover some great characters that you feel sad to part with at the end...read it. It's legitimately good.

Princess Academy

I enjoyed this so much more than I was expecting to. Shannon Hale keeps surprising me and I think this the best of all her books I've read. Of course, Austenland has a different target audience, so...really, I can only say that this outranks Goose Girl.

I hate the title. It reminds me of a Disney movie that stars Amanda Bynes or Anne Hathaway or somebody that little girls want to grow up to be like. The title actually kept me from reading this earlier. It sounded silly. In reality, however, the title is completely appropriate (I certainly can't think of a better one) and a great book for girls and their moms (sorry guys, but I don't think you'd enjoy it).

Mira is a fourteen year old Danlaner who lives on Mt Eskel with other mountain village families. When the prince's representatives come and announce that the prince will choose a bride from Mt. Eskel, each girl between the ages of 13 and 18 are forced to leave their families and attend the "princess academy" where they learned to read and write and learn the basics in commerce, poise, conversation and dance. After a years time, they meet the prince but Mira also realizes how much more enlightened she is with her education - princess-to-be or not. She uses her knowledge to better her village, defend her family and figure out the secret of "quarry-speaking".

Part fantasy, part romance, part coming of age, part fairy tale, I enjoyed this quick read.

The Maytrees

For a book about love, it's kind of a downer. There are too many exquisite lines to put this into a "waste of time" category, but as a whole, I can't claim this to be a favorite.

What I enjoyed was Dillard's ability to put a unique feel to common experiences. For instance, when Maytree looked at his wife, she wrote, "After their first year or so, Lou's beauty no longer surprised him. He never stopped looking, because her face was his eyes' home."

Or.
"That he did not possess her childhood drove him wild. Who was this impostor she sang with in college -- how dare he?"

Here's a good one:
"A woman's forgiveness weakened a man's arms and back. So did its sob sister, pity. It would not stand up to fight. Who could prevail against it?"

This one is my favorite:
"Often she missed infant Petie now gone -- his random gapes, his bizarre buttocks. How besotted they gazed at each other nose-on-nose. He fit her arms as if they two had invented how to carry a baby.....She imagined joining picnic tables outside by the beach and setting them for 22 Peties and Petes, or 122, or however greedy she was that day and however divisible Pete. Together the sons at every age and size -- scented with diaper, formula on rubber nipples, bike grease, wax crayon...waited for dinner. Who else knew what each liked? It was a hell of a long table. She gave herself a minute to watch them -- Petie after Petie barefoot near his future self and past. They pinched and teased or shoved one another. What mother would not want to see her kids again?"

Now normally I do not give a lot of quotes for a book review. I can't really explain why I did with this particular book, other than I liked these individual lines better than the book as a whole. I confess that I've always had a slight prejudice against east coasters. I don't know exactly why. Again, I like almost all of the individuals I've met, but as a whole, there is a superiority they perceive in themselves in regards to their intellect, experience and perspective that I find irritating. These characters and their beachfront way of life irritated me. Their attitudes towards marriage, parenting, etc. frustrated me. I don't know if it was the author's own bias that tainted them, or if it really was isolated to these particular characters, but the choices they made did not match the consequences I felt each choice deserved.

But who am I to say what should befall the fallen? All I can say is I felt unsatisfied at the end. And a little bit like none of it mattered.

Wow. This was a really bad book review. Sorry.

Joan Of Arc

First of all, how embarrassed am I that I didn't really know the story of Joan of Arc? I thought it was about a girl soldier that was burned at the stake because she dressed up like a man.

This story is so much more complicated than that. This is a story about faith, courage, revelation, miracles, pride, power, corruption, martyrdom and enduring to the end. This is a story that is so astonishing that most should be thoroughly schooled in its details. It is very inspiring. In short, Joan of Arc's story could easily be found in any set of scriptures.

I find it interesting that Mark Twain wrote this book. He, a man of little to no faith and disdain for those who practiced it, clearly loved and admired Joan. Twain's familiar wit and satirical prose are all but absent within these pages. Instead, he writes as a man named de Conte, the fictional page and scribe of Joan, thus allowing himself to write with his own adoring perspective, without having to actually be Mark Twain. He called this the "best of all his books" and no doubt felt that way after a result of twelve years of research. As there is plenty of historical data available about Joan's life, including the full transcript of her trial, I have little doubt that this is a very accurate representation of her life.

On one hand, I like his choice in narration. As Joan's friend and scribe, Twain's de Conte manages to allow the reader to witness Joan's life from his own memory, a memory that included first hand accounts of most of Joan's life. And although his biting wit is extremely toned down, little glimpses are seen here and there through the telling of personal side notes.

On the other hand, the narration allowed the book to frequently become overly sentimental. Louis de Conte oft wandered away from the main story line to regale a story of the Paladin, or La Hire or his attraction towards Catherine de Boucher. In addition, I lost track of how many paragraphs were lent to remind the reader, once again, about Joan's saintliness. I feel it was unnecessary and writing it, over and over again, gave the book a "dumbed down" feel (which really is quite silly because this is NOT an easy read - I should have been grateful for any dumbing down). I think the caliber of her person, as well as her righteousness, were made obvious by her very actions, by her charity and by her speech. To point it out so often was overdoing it and eventually wore down my good opinion. I have a hard time loving a book that bored me at times.

That being said, this is an incredible book about an even more incredible historical figure. I could write and write about how much I loved Joan and her goodness, about her persecution and how much her story reminded me of Joseph Smith's. There are striking similarities, down to the resigned knowledge of their own endings. But they knew what they knew, they knew God knew what they knew, and they could not deny it. With their knowledge, they accomplished great works and forever changed the course of history. Read for yourself and become smitten with the power of a seventeen year old girl who became commander in chief of all the armies in France...because God told her to do it.

Thank you, Amy. I am so much more enlightened because you sent this to me. I can walk around with confidence knowing all I now know about the life of Joan of Arc.

A Long Way Gone: Memoirs Of A Boy Soldier

Heartbreaking. I can't believe people have life experiences like Ishmael Beah. Ishmael, a 27 year-old refugee from Sierra Leone now living in New York City, left his home with his brother and some friends to practice a new rap routine in a neighboring village. He was twelve years old. He never saw his home or his parents again. Rebel forces attacked his village, killing most, and causing the rest to flee.

Without a home to return to, he and his peers managed to spend several months wandering from village to village but eventually, as they were old enough to be mistaken as soldiers themselves, they became objects of fear. Left starving and hiding in the forests, Ishmael and his group were eventually captured and forced to become soldiers.

A boy whose favorite thing was to perform rap songs for people was suddenly cutting throats and shooting anyone that moved. He became a drug addict, as higher ups encouraged the boys to swallow white capsules and sniff cocaine to "give them more energy".

Years later, he was fortunate to be chosen by his lieutenant and UNICEF workers and was enrolled in a rehabilitation unit. It took him eight months to fight the drugs out of his system and to turn into a child again. His agony and nightmares about what he had done are intense. He was only fifteen years old.

When the fighting moved from the villages into the city, Ishamel knew that he could not become a soldier again. Earlier in the year, after he had completed his rehabilitation, he traveled to New York to represent UNICEF and the youth in Sierre Leone at the UN. From this experience, he contacted one of the women he had met in New York to ask if she would be willing to allow him to stay with her if he could get out of his country. Amazingly, he managed, got to New York and has since graduated from the UN's International School and graduated from a university.

What amazes me when I read books like this, because I don't really enjoy them, is how deplorable certain areas of our world really are. We are often told of the blessings we enjoy from living where we live: freedom, prosperity, security. We worry about losing zero percent interest for credit cards and avoiding trans fat, while other people in the world literally watch their best friends get blown up. Certainly our problems and worries are real, but when put into perspective, they are molehills compared to mountains.

I'm grateful this boy got another chance. I'm horrified that most do not.