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So Many Books, So Little Time
Read In Order To Live
Title: Scarpetta
Author: Patricia Cornwell
Read By: Kate Reading
Format: Audiobook
Date Started: 10.03.09
Date Ended: 10.20.09
Number of Hours:
Grade: B
Summary: Leaving behind her private forensic pathology practice in Charleston, South Carolina, Kay Scarpetta accepts an assignment in New York City, where the NYPD has asked her to examine an injured man on Bellevue Hospital’s psychiatric prison ward. The handcuffed and chained patient, Oscar Bane, has specifically asked for her, and when she literally has her gloved hands on him, he begins to talk—and the story he has to tell turns out to be one of the most bizarre she has ever heard.
Comments: For some reason, her books are much better as an audiobook than as a regular book.
Author: Patricia Cornwell
Read By: Kate Reading
Format: Audiobook
Date Started: 10.03.09
Date Ended: 10.20.09
Number of Hours:
Grade: B
Summary: Leaving behind her private forensic pathology practice in Charleston, South Carolina, Kay Scarpetta accepts an assignment in New York City, where the NYPD has asked her to examine an injured man on Bellevue Hospital’s psychiatric prison ward. The handcuffed and chained patient, Oscar Bane, has specifically asked for her, and when she literally has her gloved hands on him, he begins to talk—and the story he has to tell turns out to be one of the most bizarre she has ever heard.
Comments: For some reason, her books are much better as an audiobook than as a regular book.
Title: Like Water for Chocolate
Author: Laura Esquivel
Format: Paperback
Date Started: 10.03.09
Date Ended:
Number of Pages: 224
Grade: A
Summary: Earthy, magical, and utterly charming, this tale of family life in turn-of-the-century Mexico became a best-selling phenomenon with its winning blend of poignant romance and bittersweet wit.
The number one bestseller in Mexico and America for almost two years, and subsequently a bestseller around the world, "Like Water For Chocolate" is a romantic, poignant tale, touched with moments of magic, graphic earthiness, bittersweet wit - and recipes. A sumptuous feast of a novel, it relates the bizarre history of the all-female De La Garza family. Tita, the youngest daughter of the house, has been forbidden to marry, condemned by Mexican tradition to look after her mother until she dies. But Tita falls in love with Pedro, and he is seduced by the magical food she cooks. In desperation, Pedro marries her sister Rosaura so that he can stay close to her. For the next twenty-two years, Tita and Pedro are forced to circle each other in unconsummated passion. Only a freakish chain of tragedies, bad luck and fate finally reunite them against all the odds.
Comments: Wonderful.
Author: Laura Esquivel
Format: Paperback
Date Started: 10.03.09
Date Ended:
Number of Pages: 224
Grade: A
Summary: Earthy, magical, and utterly charming, this tale of family life in turn-of-the-century Mexico became a best-selling phenomenon with its winning blend of poignant romance and bittersweet wit.
The number one bestseller in Mexico and America for almost two years, and subsequently a bestseller around the world, "Like Water For Chocolate" is a romantic, poignant tale, touched with moments of magic, graphic earthiness, bittersweet wit - and recipes. A sumptuous feast of a novel, it relates the bizarre history of the all-female De La Garza family. Tita, the youngest daughter of the house, has been forbidden to marry, condemned by Mexican tradition to look after her mother until she dies. But Tita falls in love with Pedro, and he is seduced by the magical food she cooks. In desperation, Pedro marries her sister Rosaura so that he can stay close to her. For the next twenty-two years, Tita and Pedro are forced to circle each other in unconsummated passion. Only a freakish chain of tragedies, bad luck and fate finally reunite them against all the odds.
Comments: Wonderful.
Title: 08: A Graphic Diary of the Campaign Trail
Author: Michael Crowley, Dan Goldman
Format: Paperback
Date Started: 10.05.09
Date Ended: 10.05.09
Number of Pages: 160
Grade: B-
Summary: Beyond the pandering focus groups, the billion-dollar fund-raising machinery, and the relentless myopia of the 24-hour news cycle, it was clear that something deep in the American psyche was stirring as the rumblings of the 2008 election first began. 08’ follows the epic 2008 presidential campaign and its dramatic cast of characters: the inevitable former first lady with a terrible plan to win, the freshman African-American Senator who skyrockets onto the national stage, and a former POW’s hangdog campaign that overcomes both a Mormon Governor and a thrice-married (occasionally cross-dressing) Mayor.
Taking its cur from campaign classics like Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72 and The Making of the President Series, 08 brings politico journalism into the graphic novel form. Reflect on all the single-issue candidates, the pundits, the meltdowns, the awkward missteps, and the ruthless maneuvers of the scorched-earth campaign trail as they knit themselves into a political tale of the present-day battle for the future of America.
Comments: Eh. It’s cool. Obama wins.
Author: Michael Crowley, Dan Goldman
Format: Paperback
Date Started: 10.05.09
Date Ended: 10.05.09
Number of Pages: 160
Grade: B-
Summary: Beyond the pandering focus groups, the billion-dollar fund-raising machinery, and the relentless myopia of the 24-hour news cycle, it was clear that something deep in the American psyche was stirring as the rumblings of the 2008 election first began. 08’ follows the epic 2008 presidential campaign and its dramatic cast of characters: the inevitable former first lady with a terrible plan to win, the freshman African-American Senator who skyrockets onto the national stage, and a former POW’s hangdog campaign that overcomes both a Mormon Governor and a thrice-married (occasionally cross-dressing) Mayor.
Taking its cur from campaign classics like Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72 and The Making of the President Series, 08 brings politico journalism into the graphic novel form. Reflect on all the single-issue candidates, the pundits, the meltdowns, the awkward missteps, and the ruthless maneuvers of the scorched-earth campaign trail as they knit themselves into a political tale of the present-day battle for the future of America.
Comments: Eh. It’s cool. Obama wins.
Title: Pride and Prejudice
Author: Jane Austen
Read By:
Format: Audiobook
Date Started: 08.26.09
Date Ended: 09.30.09
Number of Hours:
Grade: A
Summary: In a remote Hertfordshire village, far off the good coach roads of George III's England, Mr. and Mrs. Bennet -- a country squire of no great means and his scatterbrained wife -- must marry off their five vivacious daughters. At the heart of this all-consuming enterprise are the headstrong second daughter Elizabeth and her aristocratic suitor Fitzwilliam Darcy, two lovers in whom pride and prejudice must be overcome before love can bring the novel to its magnificent conclusion.
Comments: Wonderful. It took a bit to get into it, but it was very enjoyable. Completely understandable about how it stood the test of time.
Author: Jane Austen
Read By:
Format: Audiobook
Date Started: 08.26.09
Date Ended: 09.30.09
Number of Hours:
Grade: A
Summary: In a remote Hertfordshire village, far off the good coach roads of George III's England, Mr. and Mrs. Bennet -- a country squire of no great means and his scatterbrained wife -- must marry off their five vivacious daughters. At the heart of this all-consuming enterprise are the headstrong second daughter Elizabeth and her aristocratic suitor Fitzwilliam Darcy, two lovers in whom pride and prejudice must be overcome before love can bring the novel to its magnificent conclusion.
Comments: Wonderful. It took a bit to get into it, but it was very enjoyable. Completely understandable about how it stood the test of time.
Title: The Book of Lie
Author: Brad Meltzer
Format: Hardcover
Date Started: 09.22.09
Date Ended: 09.24.09
Number of Pages: 307
Grade: C
Summary: Meltzer builds suspenseful fiction on a previously little-explored historical nugget: Jerry Siegel, the teenage creator of Superman, lost his father in an unsolved murder in 1932. The author offers a compelling theoretical solution by way of an adult protagonist who is dealing with his conflicted feelings about his own father. Cal works for a rescue mission, picking up vagrants in need of shelter, when he stumbles across a man who turns out to be the father who abandoned him in childhood. The two men join forces in pursuit of what they believe is the lost Book of Cain, the weapon used in the Bibles original murder scene. Meltzer invokes multiple viewpoints as Cal, his father, a mysterious young woman who seems to have befriended the father, a rogue ex-cop, and a hot Federal agent converge on Cleveland in search of the biblical treasure.
Comments: A Da Vinci Code wannabe. Everything lined up too neatly in a situation that should be a little messy.
Author: Brad Meltzer
Format: Hardcover
Date Started: 09.22.09
Date Ended: 09.24.09
Number of Pages: 307
Grade: C
Summary: Meltzer builds suspenseful fiction on a previously little-explored historical nugget: Jerry Siegel, the teenage creator of Superman, lost his father in an unsolved murder in 1932. The author offers a compelling theoretical solution by way of an adult protagonist who is dealing with his conflicted feelings about his own father. Cal works for a rescue mission, picking up vagrants in need of shelter, when he stumbles across a man who turns out to be the father who abandoned him in childhood. The two men join forces in pursuit of what they believe is the lost Book of Cain, the weapon used in the Bibles original murder scene. Meltzer invokes multiple viewpoints as Cal, his father, a mysterious young woman who seems to have befriended the father, a rogue ex-cop, and a hot Federal agent converge on Cleveland in search of the biblical treasure.
Comments: A Da Vinci Code wannabe. Everything lined up too neatly in a situation that should be a little messy.
Title: Shulz and Peanuts
Author: David Michaelis
Format: Paperback
Date Started:
Date Ended: 09.19.09
Number of Pages: 566
Grade: B+
Summary: For all the joy Charlie Brown and the gang gave readers over half a century, their creator, Charles Schulz, was a profoundly unhappy man. It's widely known that he hated the name Peanuts, which was foisted on the strip by his syndicate. But Michaelis (N.C. Wyeth: A Biography), given access to family, friends and personal papers, reveals the full extent of Schulz's depression, tracing its origins in his Minnesota childhood, with parents reluctant to encourage his artistic dreams and yearbook editors who scrapped his illustrations without explanation. Nearly 250 Peanuts strips are woven into the biography, demonstrating just how much of his life story Schulz poured into the cartoon. In one sequence, Snoopy's crush on a girl dog is revealed as a barely disguised retelling of the artist's extramarital affair. Michaelis is especially strong in recounting Schulz's artistic development, teasing out the influences on his unique characterization of children. And Michaelis makes plain the full impact of Peanuts' first decades and how much it puzzled and unnerved other cartoonists. This is a fascinating account of an artist who devoted his life to his work in the painful belief that it was all he had.
Comments:
Author: David Michaelis
Format: Paperback
Date Started:
Date Ended: 09.19.09
Number of Pages: 566
Grade: B+
Summary: For all the joy Charlie Brown and the gang gave readers over half a century, their creator, Charles Schulz, was a profoundly unhappy man. It's widely known that he hated the name Peanuts, which was foisted on the strip by his syndicate. But Michaelis (N.C. Wyeth: A Biography), given access to family, friends and personal papers, reveals the full extent of Schulz's depression, tracing its origins in his Minnesota childhood, with parents reluctant to encourage his artistic dreams and yearbook editors who scrapped his illustrations without explanation. Nearly 250 Peanuts strips are woven into the biography, demonstrating just how much of his life story Schulz poured into the cartoon. In one sequence, Snoopy's crush on a girl dog is revealed as a barely disguised retelling of the artist's extramarital affair. Michaelis is especially strong in recounting Schulz's artistic development, teasing out the influences on his unique characterization of children. And Michaelis makes plain the full impact of Peanuts' first decades and how much it puzzled and unnerved other cartoonists. This is a fascinating account of an artist who devoted his life to his work in the painful belief that it was all he had.
Comments:
Title: $20 Per Gallon: How The Inevitable Rise in the Price of Gasoline Will Change Our Lives for the Better
Author: Christopher Steiner
Format: Hardcover
Date Started: 08.31.09
Date Ended: 09.05.09
Number of Pages: 253
Grade: A
Summary: Imagine an everyday world in which the price of gasoline (and oil) continues to go up, and up, and up. Think about the immediate impact that would have on our lives.
Of course, everybody already knows how about gasoline has affected our driving habits. People can't wait to junk their gas-guzzling SUVs for a new Prius. But there are more, not-so-obvious changes on the horizon that Chris Steiner tracks brilliantly in this provocative work.
Consider the following societal changes: people who own homes in far-off suburbs will soon realize that there's no longer any market for their houses (reason: nobody wants to live too far away because it's too expensive to commute to work). Telecommuting will begin to expand rapidly. Trains will become the mode of national transportation (as it used to be) as the price of flying becomes prohibitive. Families will begin to migrate southward as the price of heating northern homes in the winter is too pricey. Cheap everyday items that are comprised of plastic will go away because of the rising price to produce them (plastic is derived from oil). And this is just the beginning of a huge and overwhelming domino effect that our way of life will undergo in the years to come.
Steiner, an engineer by training before turning to journalism, sees how this simple but constant rise in oil and gas prices will totally re-structure our lifestyle. But what may be surprising to readers is that all of these changes may not be negative - but actually will usher in some new and very promising aspects of our society.
Steiner will probe how the liberation of technology and innovation, triggered by climbing gas prices, will change our lives. The book may start as an alarmist's exercise.... but don't be misled. The future will be exhilarating.
Comments: While some of the arguments are a little far fetched and doomsdayish, I thought it was a well written argument about where we, as a country, are headed as the price of oil keeps rising.
Author: Christopher Steiner
Format: Hardcover
Date Started: 08.31.09
Date Ended: 09.05.09
Number of Pages: 253
Grade: A
Summary: Imagine an everyday world in which the price of gasoline (and oil) continues to go up, and up, and up. Think about the immediate impact that would have on our lives.
Of course, everybody already knows how about gasoline has affected our driving habits. People can't wait to junk their gas-guzzling SUVs for a new Prius. But there are more, not-so-obvious changes on the horizon that Chris Steiner tracks brilliantly in this provocative work.
Consider the following societal changes: people who own homes in far-off suburbs will soon realize that there's no longer any market for their houses (reason: nobody wants to live too far away because it's too expensive to commute to work). Telecommuting will begin to expand rapidly. Trains will become the mode of national transportation (as it used to be) as the price of flying becomes prohibitive. Families will begin to migrate southward as the price of heating northern homes in the winter is too pricey. Cheap everyday items that are comprised of plastic will go away because of the rising price to produce them (plastic is derived from oil). And this is just the beginning of a huge and overwhelming domino effect that our way of life will undergo in the years to come.
Steiner, an engineer by training before turning to journalism, sees how this simple but constant rise in oil and gas prices will totally re-structure our lifestyle. But what may be surprising to readers is that all of these changes may not be negative - but actually will usher in some new and very promising aspects of our society.
Steiner will probe how the liberation of technology and innovation, triggered by climbing gas prices, will change our lives. The book may start as an alarmist's exercise.... but don't be misled. The future will be exhilarating.
Comments: While some of the arguments are a little far fetched and doomsdayish, I thought it was a well written argument about where we, as a country, are headed as the price of oil keeps rising.
Title: What-The-Dickens? A Story of a Rogue Tooth Fairy
Author: Gregory Maguire
Format: Paperback
Date Started: 08.31.09
Date Ended: 09.02.09
Number of Pages: 322
Grade: B-
Summary: A terrible storm is raging, and Dinah is huddled by candlelight with her brother, sister, and cousin Gage, who is telling a very unusual tale. It’s thestory of What-the-Dickens, a newly hatched orphan creature who finds he has an attraction to teeth, a crush on a cat named McCavity, and a penchant for getting into trouble. One day he happens upon a feisty girl skibberee working as an Agent of Change — trading coins for teeth — and learns of a dutiful tribe of tooth fairies to which he hopes to belong. As his tale unfolds, however, both What-the-Dickens and Dinah come to see that the world is both richer and far less sure than they ever imagined.
Comments: Another mediocre example of Maguire’s work. This, I found less enjoyable because it seemed thrown together, tied hastily together at the end.
Author: Gregory Maguire
Format: Paperback
Date Started: 08.31.09
Date Ended: 09.02.09
Number of Pages: 322
Grade: B-
Summary: A terrible storm is raging, and Dinah is huddled by candlelight with her brother, sister, and cousin Gage, who is telling a very unusual tale. It’s thestory of What-the-Dickens, a newly hatched orphan creature who finds he has an attraction to teeth, a crush on a cat named McCavity, and a penchant for getting into trouble. One day he happens upon a feisty girl skibberee working as an Agent of Change — trading coins for teeth — and learns of a dutiful tribe of tooth fairies to which he hopes to belong. As his tale unfolds, however, both What-the-Dickens and Dinah come to see that the world is both richer and far less sure than they ever imagined.
Comments: Another mediocre example of Maguire’s work. This, I found less enjoyable because it seemed thrown together, tied hastily together at the end.
Title: The Meaning of Night: A Confession
Author: Michael Cox
Format: Paperback
Date Started:
Date Ended: 08.30.09
Number of Pages: 695
Grade: A
Summary: Cox's richly imagined thriller features an unreliable narrator, Edward Glyver, who opens his chilling "confession" with a cold-blooded account of an anonymous murder that he commits one night on the streets of 1854 London. That killing is mere training for his planned assassination of Phoebus Daunt, an acquaintance Glyver blames for virtually every downturn in his life. Glyver feels Daunt's insidious influence in everything from his humiliating expulsion from school to his dismal career as a law firm factotum. The narrative ultimately centers on the monomaniacal Glyver's discovery of a usurped inheritance that should have been his birthright, the byzantine particulars of which are drawing him into a final, fatal confrontation with Daunt.
Comments: Excellent book. Even though it is extremely wordy, in the Victorian fashion, it is only too easy to lose yourself in the psychological mess that is Glyver’s own mind. It was a refreshing change, reading a book where the “hero” of the book is not a good guy.
Author: Michael Cox
Format: Paperback
Date Started:
Date Ended: 08.30.09
Number of Pages: 695
Grade: A
Summary: Cox's richly imagined thriller features an unreliable narrator, Edward Glyver, who opens his chilling "confession" with a cold-blooded account of an anonymous murder that he commits one night on the streets of 1854 London. That killing is mere training for his planned assassination of Phoebus Daunt, an acquaintance Glyver blames for virtually every downturn in his life. Glyver feels Daunt's insidious influence in everything from his humiliating expulsion from school to his dismal career as a law firm factotum. The narrative ultimately centers on the monomaniacal Glyver's discovery of a usurped inheritance that should have been his birthright, the byzantine particulars of which are drawing him into a final, fatal confrontation with Daunt.
Comments: Excellent book. Even though it is extremely wordy, in the Victorian fashion, it is only too easy to lose yourself in the psychological mess that is Glyver’s own mind. It was a refreshing change, reading a book where the “hero” of the book is not a good guy.
Title: In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto
Author: Michael Pollan
Format: Paperback
Date Started: 08.10.09
Date Ended: 08.13.09
Number of Pages: 201
Grade: A
Summary: Food is the one thing that Americans hate to love and, as it turns out, love to hate. What we want to eat has been ousted by the notion of what we should eat, and it's at this nexus of hunger and hang-up that Michael Pollan poses his most salient question: where is the food in our food? What follows in In Defense of Food is a series of wonderfully clear and thoughtful answers that help us omnivores navigate the nutritional minefield that's come to typify our food culture. Many processed foods vie for a spot in our grocery baskets, claiming to lower cholesterol, weight, glucose levels, you name it. Yet Pollan shows that these convenient "healthy" alternatives to whole foods are appallingly inconvenient: our health has a nation has only deteriorated since we started exiling carbs, fats--even fruits--from our daily meals. His razor-sharp analysis of the American diet (as well as its architects and its detractors) offers an inspiring glimpse of what it would be like if we could (a la Humpty Dumpty) put our food back together again and reconsider what it means to eat well. In a season filled with rallying cries to lose weight and be healthy, Pollan's call to action—"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."--is a program I actually want to follow.
Comments: No-nonsense, logical, sensical. Kind of like skinny bitch, but not as bitchy.
Author: Michael Pollan
Format: Paperback
Date Started: 08.10.09
Date Ended: 08.13.09
Number of Pages: 201
Grade: A
Summary: Food is the one thing that Americans hate to love and, as it turns out, love to hate. What we want to eat has been ousted by the notion of what we should eat, and it's at this nexus of hunger and hang-up that Michael Pollan poses his most salient question: where is the food in our food? What follows in In Defense of Food is a series of wonderfully clear and thoughtful answers that help us omnivores navigate the nutritional minefield that's come to typify our food culture. Many processed foods vie for a spot in our grocery baskets, claiming to lower cholesterol, weight, glucose levels, you name it. Yet Pollan shows that these convenient "healthy" alternatives to whole foods are appallingly inconvenient: our health has a nation has only deteriorated since we started exiling carbs, fats--even fruits--from our daily meals. His razor-sharp analysis of the American diet (as well as its architects and its detractors) offers an inspiring glimpse of what it would be like if we could (a la Humpty Dumpty) put our food back together again and reconsider what it means to eat well. In a season filled with rallying cries to lose weight and be healthy, Pollan's call to action—"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."--is a program I actually want to follow.
Comments: No-nonsense, logical, sensical. Kind of like skinny bitch, but not as bitchy.
Title: Three Cups of Tea
Author: Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin
Format: Paperback
Date Started: 07.26.09
Date Ended: 08.07.09
Number of Pages: 331
Grade: A
Summary: In 1993 a mountaineer named Greg Mortenson drifted into an impoverished Pakistan village in the Karakoram mountains after a failed attempt to climb K2. Moved by the inhabitants’ kindness, he promised to return and build a school. Three Cups of Tea is the story of that promise and its extraordinary outcome. Over the next decade Mortenson built not just one but fifty-five schools- especially for girls- in the forbidding terrain that gave birth to the Taliban. His story is at once a riveting adventure and a testament to the power of the humanitarian spirit.
Comments:
Author: Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin
Format: Paperback
Date Started: 07.26.09
Date Ended: 08.07.09
Number of Pages: 331
Grade: A
Summary: In 1993 a mountaineer named Greg Mortenson drifted into an impoverished Pakistan village in the Karakoram mountains after a failed attempt to climb K2. Moved by the inhabitants’ kindness, he promised to return and build a school. Three Cups of Tea is the story of that promise and its extraordinary outcome. Over the next decade Mortenson built not just one but fifty-five schools- especially for girls- in the forbidding terrain that gave birth to the Taliban. His story is at once a riveting adventure and a testament to the power of the humanitarian spirit.
Comments:
Title: Supreme Courtship
Author: Christopher Buckley
Read By: Anne Heche
Format: Audiobook
Date Started: 07.17.09
Date Ended: 07.25.09
Number of Hours: 8.5
Grade: A
Summary: President Donald Vanderdamp is having a hell of a time getting his nominees onto the Supreme Court. After one nominee is rejected for insufficiently appreciating To Kill a Mockingbird, the president chooses someone so beloved by voters that the Senate won't have the nerve to reject her--Judge Pepper Cartwright, star of the nation's most popular reality show. Will Pepper, a vivacious Texan, survive a Senate confirmation battle? Will becoming one of the most powerful women in the world ruin her love life? Soon, Pepper finds herself in the middle of a constitutional crisis, a presidential reelection campaign that the president is determined to lose, and oral arguments of a romantic nature.
Comments: Hillariously addicting. I wasn’t sure about it when I first popped it in- it begins a little awkwardly, but I was quickly addicted, and went looking for reasons to go driving, just to be able to listen to the audiobook.
Author: Christopher Buckley
Read By: Anne Heche
Format: Audiobook
Date Started: 07.17.09
Date Ended: 07.25.09
Number of Hours: 8.5
Grade: A
Summary: President Donald Vanderdamp is having a hell of a time getting his nominees onto the Supreme Court. After one nominee is rejected for insufficiently appreciating To Kill a Mockingbird, the president chooses someone so beloved by voters that the Senate won't have the nerve to reject her--Judge Pepper Cartwright, star of the nation's most popular reality show. Will Pepper, a vivacious Texan, survive a Senate confirmation battle? Will becoming one of the most powerful women in the world ruin her love life? Soon, Pepper finds herself in the middle of a constitutional crisis, a presidential reelection campaign that the president is determined to lose, and oral arguments of a romantic nature.
Comments: Hillariously addicting. I wasn’t sure about it when I first popped it in- it begins a little awkwardly, but I was quickly addicted, and went looking for reasons to go driving, just to be able to listen to the audiobook.
Title: Brothel: Mustang Ranch and it’s Women
Author: Alexa Albert
Format: Paperback
Date Started: 07.22.09
Date Ended: 07.23.09
Number of Pages: 266
Grade: A
Summary: A journey into a fascinating subculture, Alexa Albert's exploration of Nevada's infamous cathouses began as a public-health study into the safe-sex practices of these legal working girls and the effectiveness of condom requirements in preventing sexually transmitted diseases. It took her three years to gain access to the brothels, and when her project was eventually approved by the head of the Nevada Brothel Association, she was surprised to be invited to stay at Mustang Ranch, among the women of the brothel, for the duration of her research. She learned that despite the legalization of prostitution in several counties of Nevada, the working girls still faced restrictive local ordinances and work regulations that kept them virtual prisoners inside the brothel compound. Outside, they encountered the same social stigma that has always haunted sex workers. In her compassionate, engaging first book, Albert answers all the questions you might ever have about prostitutes, providing a rich and nuanced depiction of a largely hidden world.
Comments: An excellent, quick read. I was curious as to how a book showing a part of a seedy subculture could be portrayed without judgement, but it was done, quite superbly, I might add.
Author: Alexa Albert
Format: Paperback
Date Started: 07.22.09
Date Ended: 07.23.09
Number of Pages: 266
Grade: A
Summary: A journey into a fascinating subculture, Alexa Albert's exploration of Nevada's infamous cathouses began as a public-health study into the safe-sex practices of these legal working girls and the effectiveness of condom requirements in preventing sexually transmitted diseases. It took her three years to gain access to the brothels, and when her project was eventually approved by the head of the Nevada Brothel Association, she was surprised to be invited to stay at Mustang Ranch, among the women of the brothel, for the duration of her research. She learned that despite the legalization of prostitution in several counties of Nevada, the working girls still faced restrictive local ordinances and work regulations that kept them virtual prisoners inside the brothel compound. Outside, they encountered the same social stigma that has always haunted sex workers. In her compassionate, engaging first book, Albert answers all the questions you might ever have about prostitutes, providing a rich and nuanced depiction of a largely hidden world.
Comments: An excellent, quick read. I was curious as to how a book showing a part of a seedy subculture could be portrayed without judgement, but it was done, quite superbly, I might add.
Title: April 1865
Author: Jay Winik
Format: Paperback
Date Started: 07.06.09
Date Ended: 07.12.09
Number of Pages: 388
Grade: D
Summary: Though the primary focus of this book is the last month of the Civil War, it opens in the 18th century with a view of Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson. Winik (whose previous book, On the Brink, was an account of the Reagan administration and the end of the Cold War) offers not just a study of four weeks of war, but a panoramic assessment of America and its contradictions. The opening Jeffersonian question is: does the good of the country take precedence over that of the individual states? The question of civil union or civil war is the central question of this new work. Winik goes on to describe how a series of events that occurred during a matter of weeks in April 1865 (the fall of Richmond; Lee's graceful surrender to Grant at Appomattox, and Grant's equally distinguished handling of his foe; Lincoln's assassination), none of them inevitable, would solve Jefferson's riddle: while a loose federation of states entered the war, what emerged from war and Reconstruction was a much stronger nation; the Union had decisively triumphed over the wishes of individual states. Winik's sense of the dramatic and his vivid writing bring a fitting flourish to his thesis that April 1865 marked a turning point in American history: "So, after April 1865, when the blood had clotted and dried, when the cadavers had been removed and the graves filled in, what America was asking for, at war's end, was in fact something quite unique: a special exemption from the cruel edicts of history." Winik's ability to see the big picture in the close-up (and vice versa), and to compose riveting narrative, is masterful.
Comments: Weak writing, questionable evidence.
Author: Jay Winik
Format: Paperback
Date Started: 07.06.09
Date Ended: 07.12.09
Number of Pages: 388
Grade: D
Summary: Though the primary focus of this book is the last month of the Civil War, it opens in the 18th century with a view of Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson. Winik (whose previous book, On the Brink, was an account of the Reagan administration and the end of the Cold War) offers not just a study of four weeks of war, but a panoramic assessment of America and its contradictions. The opening Jeffersonian question is: does the good of the country take precedence over that of the individual states? The question of civil union or civil war is the central question of this new work. Winik goes on to describe how a series of events that occurred during a matter of weeks in April 1865 (the fall of Richmond; Lee's graceful surrender to Grant at Appomattox, and Grant's equally distinguished handling of his foe; Lincoln's assassination), none of them inevitable, would solve Jefferson's riddle: while a loose federation of states entered the war, what emerged from war and Reconstruction was a much stronger nation; the Union had decisively triumphed over the wishes of individual states. Winik's sense of the dramatic and his vivid writing bring a fitting flourish to his thesis that April 1865 marked a turning point in American history: "So, after April 1865, when the blood had clotted and dried, when the cadavers had been removed and the graves filled in, what America was asking for, at war's end, was in fact something quite unique: a special exemption from the cruel edicts of history." Winik's ability to see the big picture in the close-up (and vice versa), and to compose riveting narrative, is masterful.
Comments: Weak writing, questionable evidence.
Title: Fahrenheit 451
Author: Ray Bradbury
Format: Paperback
Date Started: 06.29.09
Date Ended: 06.30.09
Number of Pages: 165
Grade: B
Summary: Guy Montag was a fireman whose job it was to start fires… The system was simple. Everyone understood it. Books were for burning… along with the houses in which they were hidden. Guy montag enjoyed his job. He had been a fireman for ten years, and he had never questioned the pleasure of the midnight runs nor the joy of watching pages consumed by flames… never questioned anything until he met a seventeen year old girl who told him of a past when people were not afraid. Then he met a professor who told him of a future in which people could think… and Guy Montag suddenly realized what he had to do.
Comments: A lovely cautionary tale. Should be required reading.
Author: Ray Bradbury
Format: Paperback
Date Started: 06.29.09
Date Ended: 06.30.09
Number of Pages: 165
Grade: B
Summary: Guy Montag was a fireman whose job it was to start fires… The system was simple. Everyone understood it. Books were for burning… along with the houses in which they were hidden. Guy montag enjoyed his job. He had been a fireman for ten years, and he had never questioned the pleasure of the midnight runs nor the joy of watching pages consumed by flames… never questioned anything until he met a seventeen year old girl who told him of a past when people were not afraid. Then he met a professor who told him of a future in which people could think… and Guy Montag suddenly realized what he had to do.
Comments: A lovely cautionary tale. Should be required reading.
Title: The Grapes of Wrath
Author: John Steinbeck
Format: Paperback
Date Started: 06.22.09
Date Ended: 06.28.09
Number of Pages: 619
Grade: B+
Summary: Although it follows the ovement of thousands of men and women and the transformation of an entire nation, The Grapes of Wrath is also the story of one Oklahoma farm family, the Joads, who are driven off their homestead and forced to travel west to the promised land of California. Out of their trials and their repeated collisions against the hard realities of an America divided into Haves and Have-nots, Steinbeck created a drama that is tensely human yet majestic in its scale and moral vision, elemental yet plainspoken, tragic but ultimately stirring in its insistence on human dignity.
Comments: A stunning portrait of 1930’s America, particularly of the Dust Bowl and California.
Author: John Steinbeck
Format: Paperback
Date Started: 06.22.09
Date Ended: 06.28.09
Number of Pages: 619
Grade: B+
Summary: Although it follows the ovement of thousands of men and women and the transformation of an entire nation, The Grapes of Wrath is also the story of one Oklahoma farm family, the Joads, who are driven off their homestead and forced to travel west to the promised land of California. Out of their trials and their repeated collisions against the hard realities of an America divided into Haves and Have-nots, Steinbeck created a drama that is tensely human yet majestic in its scale and moral vision, elemental yet plainspoken, tragic but ultimately stirring in its insistence on human dignity.
Comments: A stunning portrait of 1930’s America, particularly of the Dust Bowl and California.
Title: M Is For Magic
Author: Neil Gaiman
Read By: Neil Gaiman
Format: Audiobook
Date Started: 06.15.09
Date Ended: 06.27.09
Number of Hours: 5.4
Grade: A
Summary:
Comments: Another enjoyable collection of short stories, this time geared towards the younger generation of readers, read by Neil Gaiman. Two of the stories I had already read- Chivalry and The Witches Headstone (part of The Graveyard Book) and the one with the Troll, but the quality of work was impeccable, as usual.
Author: Neil Gaiman
Read By: Neil Gaiman
Format: Audiobook
Date Started: 06.15.09
Date Ended: 06.27.09
Number of Hours: 5.4
Grade: A
Summary:
Comments: Another enjoyable collection of short stories, this time geared towards the younger generation of readers, read by Neil Gaiman. Two of the stories I had already read- Chivalry and The Witches Headstone (part of The Graveyard Book) and the one with the Troll, but the quality of work was impeccable, as usual.
Title: Double Trouble
Author: Claire Cross
Format: Paperback
Date Started: 06.17.09
Date Ended: 06.19.09
Number of Pages:
Grade: B
Summary: Maralys O'Reilly is the twin with the bad reputation, but if you're in trouble she's the one to call, and her two nephews do just that when they're stranded. Good old Aunt Maralys has always lived life on her own terms even after a bad marriage that left her in serious debt and wary of men. Her brother-in-law and adversary, James, who was the ideal catch (i.e., a wealthy lawyer), not only must face divorce from Maralys' twin, Marcia, he's also jobless and in debt. Maralys, who runs an advice-dispensing Web site, offers suggestions to James about simplifying his life and then is surprised when he moves to a middle-class Boston neighborhood. The two find that they are very attracted to each other, but Maralys worries about being a Marcia substitute and sure could use some good advice.
Comments: There’s something about chicklit that screams summertime. As in, it’s the only time of the year I can read it and enjoy it. And with the weather we’ve been having, I need a sense of sunshine. Definitely a couple plot twists that I was NOT expecting from a chicklit, but the sappy, romantic gestures were there in full swing. Definitely recommended.
Author: Claire Cross
Format: Paperback
Date Started: 06.17.09
Date Ended: 06.19.09
Number of Pages:
Grade: B
Summary: Maralys O'Reilly is the twin with the bad reputation, but if you're in trouble she's the one to call, and her two nephews do just that when they're stranded. Good old Aunt Maralys has always lived life on her own terms even after a bad marriage that left her in serious debt and wary of men. Her brother-in-law and adversary, James, who was the ideal catch (i.e., a wealthy lawyer), not only must face divorce from Maralys' twin, Marcia, he's also jobless and in debt. Maralys, who runs an advice-dispensing Web site, offers suggestions to James about simplifying his life and then is surprised when he moves to a middle-class Boston neighborhood. The two find that they are very attracted to each other, but Maralys worries about being a Marcia substitute and sure could use some good advice.
Comments: There’s something about chicklit that screams summertime. As in, it’s the only time of the year I can read it and enjoy it. And with the weather we’ve been having, I need a sense of sunshine. Definitely a couple plot twists that I was NOT expecting from a chicklit, but the sappy, romantic gestures were there in full swing. Definitely recommended.
Title: The Alchemist
Author: Paulo Coelho
Format: Paperback
Date Started: 06.09.09
Date Ended: 06.15.09
Number of Pages:
Grade: 167
Summary: The Alchemist presents a simple fable, based on simple truths and places it in a highly unique situation. And though we may sniff a bestselling formula, it is certainly not a new one: even the ancient tribal storytellers knew that this is the most successful method of entertaining an audience while slipping in a lesson or two. Brazilian storyteller Paulo Coehlo introduces Santiago, an Andalusian shepherd boy who one night dreams of a distant treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. And so he's off: leaving Spain to literally follow his dream.
Along the way he meets many spiritual messengers, who come in unassuming forms such as a camel driver and a well-read Englishman. In one of the Englishman's books, Santiago first learns about the alchemists--men who believed that if a metal were heated for many years, it would free itself of all its individual properties, and what was left would be the "Soul of the World." Of course he does eventually meet an alchemist, and the ensuing student-teacher relationship clarifies much of the boy's misguided agenda, while also emboldening him to stay true to his dreams. "My heart is afraid that it will have to suffer," the boy confides to the alchemist one night as they look up at a moonless night.
"Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself," the alchemist replies. "And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second's encounter with God and with eternity."
Comments: This book is, in a word, amazing. Philosophical, if you can search for deeper meaning, a good story if you just want that. Recommended to everybody.
Author: Paulo Coelho
Format: Paperback
Date Started: 06.09.09
Date Ended: 06.15.09
Number of Pages:
Grade: 167
Summary: The Alchemist presents a simple fable, based on simple truths and places it in a highly unique situation. And though we may sniff a bestselling formula, it is certainly not a new one: even the ancient tribal storytellers knew that this is the most successful method of entertaining an audience while slipping in a lesson or two. Brazilian storyteller Paulo Coehlo introduces Santiago, an Andalusian shepherd boy who one night dreams of a distant treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. And so he's off: leaving Spain to literally follow his dream.
Along the way he meets many spiritual messengers, who come in unassuming forms such as a camel driver and a well-read Englishman. In one of the Englishman's books, Santiago first learns about the alchemists--men who believed that if a metal were heated for many years, it would free itself of all its individual properties, and what was left would be the "Soul of the World." Of course he does eventually meet an alchemist, and the ensuing student-teacher relationship clarifies much of the boy's misguided agenda, while also emboldening him to stay true to his dreams. "My heart is afraid that it will have to suffer," the boy confides to the alchemist one night as they look up at a moonless night.
"Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself," the alchemist replies. "And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second's encounter with God and with eternity."
Comments: This book is, in a word, amazing. Philosophical, if you can search for deeper meaning, a good story if you just want that. Recommended to everybody.