Books in My Mailbox

Posted on July 4, 2016 by At Home With Books

I don’t receive books for review often because I’ve been too focused on work and family to request any, but these were such a nice surprise that I thought I’d share them with you. (All of the descriptions below are taken from the publishers’ blurbs.)

YearoftheRunawaysThe Year of the Runaways by Sunjeev Sahota
Released March 29, 2016

Three young men, and one unforgettable woman, come together in a journey from India to England, where they hope to begin something new—to support their families; to build their futures; to show their worth; to escape the past. They have almost no idea what awaits them.

In a dilapidated shared house in Sheffield, Tarlochan, a former rickshaw driver, will say nothing about his life in Bihar. Avtar and Randeep are middle-class boys whose families are slowly sinking into financial ruin, bound together by Avtar’s secret. Randeep, in turn, has a visa wife across town, whose cupboards are full of her husband’s clothes in case the immigration agents surprise her with a visit.

She is Narinder, and her story is the most surprising of them all.

_______________________

This Must be the Place by Maggie O’Farrell
Releases July 19, 2016

Meet Daniel Sullivan, a man with a complicated life. A New Yorker living in the wilds of Ireland, he has children he never sees in California, a father he loathes in Brooklyn, and a wife, Claudette, who is a reclusive ex–film star given to pulling a gun on anyone who ventures up their driveway. Claudette was once the most glamorous and infamous woman in cinema before she staged her own disappearance and retreated to blissful seclusion in an Irish farmhouse.

But the life Daniel and Claudette have so carefully constructed is about to be disrupted by an unexpected discovery about a woman Daniel lost touch with twenty years ago. This revelation will send him off-course, far away from wife, children, and home. Will his love for Claudette be enough to bring him back?

_______________________

Autumn’s Wish by Bella Thorne
Releases July 5, 2016

Senior year is here, and everyone has a plan—except Autumn Falls. So many crazy-important decisions lie ahead, and she’s scared to make the wrong one. So when she receives a magical locket that enables her to travel through time (!!!), Autumn hopes she can correct all her past mistakes—with her friends, with boys—and maybe even prevent her dad from dying. But the locket doesn’t work that way. Instead, Autumn discovers that she’s only able to visit the future—and she doesn’t like what she sees. Autumn can change her destiny . . . but what does she really want?

Read more Mailbox posts at the Mailbox Monday site.

Posted in Advance Review Copy, Mailbox Monday, New Books | Tagged , | 9 Comments

3 Fantastic Science Fiction Novels

Posted on May 12, 2016 by At Home With Books

Below are three of my favorite Science Fiction reads from the past few months.

ArkwrightArkwright by Allen Steele

What starts off as a generational story of a science-fiction novelist’s pipe dream becomes an interstellar saga of possibilities. This is the story of a starship built on one man’s hopes and dreams, and seen through by his family’s dedication to, and faith in, the future of space travel.

It took a while for the plot of this story to really grip me with any intensity, but the payoff at the end was well worth the time invested.

seveneves

Seveneves by Neal Stephenson

The catalyst of the plot of Seveneves is a catastrophic event that is going to wipe all life off the surface of the planet. Scientists try to come up with a way to save at least some of the population, and you can probably imagine how the rest of the people react to the sudden news of impending doom, not to mention the fact that only a few people will be chosen to be saved by being launched into space.

What appealed to me most about this novel was the sheer scope of the story, since it covers the time leading up to the catastrophe, the immediate aftermath, and then the long-term survival of those who live in space – and the culture that develops there over thousands of years. It must have been a massive undertaking of a novel to write for the author, but it was the source of many hours’ entertainment for this reader. There are few novels of this length that I could see re-reading for fun, but this is definitely one of them.

If Neal Stephenson were to write another novel within this storyline/universe I would definitely read it.

LastColony

The Last Colony by John Scalzi

The Last Colony is the third book in Old Man’s War series, but it can easily be read as a stand-alone novel (although there are obviously spoilers for earlier books in the series, so if you intend to read them you should probably do that first – and I do recommend all of these books to science fiction fans).

The Last Colony is a story of space colonists settling on a new planet, and of course, things don’t go according to plan. There are power-struggles, mysterious and potentially dangerous animals native to the planet, as well as intergalactic political power-plays that have surprising implications for the settlers. So basically it has everything I would look for in a good “colonists settling a new planet” science fiction novel.

I read Zoe’s Tale immediately after finishing The Last Colony and I recommend it as well. I don’t normal enjoy novels that follow the same time period from different perspectives, but Zoe’s story really fills out a lot of missing plot points from The Last Colony, in addition to giving more details about the Obin and her unique relationship to their species.

Have you read any great science fiction books lately? I’d love to hear about any new (or old) favorites!

Posted in Book Reviews, From My Shelf, Library Book, Sci-fi, Science Fiction | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 11 Comments

Mini Reviews

Posted on September 28, 2015 by At Home With Books

I can easily recommend three out the four books that I have reviewed below, although each of those three is vastly different from the others. Which leaves only one oddball book that I didn’t like. I consider that to be a decent batting average, especially when I am taking a chance on new books and new-to-me authors.

I Must Say: My Life As a Humble Comedy Legend by Martin Short – Published November 4, 2014.

I picked up this audio book from the library because I needed something to listen to while doing housework, and was in the mood for a comedy memoir. While I’m really only a fan of some of Martin Short’s work, mainly his role as Franz in the movie “Father of the Bride,” there is no denying that he has a huge amount of energy and comedic talent. This memoir was incredibly enjoyable, and I found myself laughing out loud many times while listening to it. I think the reason I liked this memoir so much more than most other celebrity memoirs, was that it was like sitting down with a good friend (a very funny good friend) and having them regale you with all of their best stories. It also doesn’t hurt that Martin Short’s stories are filled with recognizable names of stage and screen. His recounting of his relationship with his wife was lovely. I highly recommend listening to the audiobook so that you can hear Martin Short do all of the voices for his various characters.

 

The Marvels by Brian Selznick – Published September 15, 2015.

Once again Brian Selznick has created a dual story of images and text, and done so with a fresh new story. I can see some basic parallels between his three artistic books (this one, The Invention of Hugo Cabret, and Wonderstruck); mainly that element of a child running away from authority figures and making life-changing discoveries, usually involving getting to know someone with an artistic ability. Other than that though, this book covers new ground. I liked that parts of the story were based on real occurrences. It was a pleasure to read this story, both for the entertaining plot and the physical appeal of the book itself – the artwork and the gold-edged pages.

Brian Selznick’s books are targeted at readers from grades 3 – 7, but I would recommend them to adults as well, especially those who enjoy reading high-quality graphic novels. That’s not to say that this is a graphic novel per se, but it has enough similarities in form that I think it will appeal to a similar fan base, as well as to children in the recommended reading levels.

 

Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson – Published July 7, 2015.

I listened to this audiobook while painting the spare room in our house, so it had, for the most part, my undivided attention. I wasn’t sure at first what to think of it, because most of the story is narrated in a voice that is semi-monotone to simulate that of the ship’s computer. I actually had read the first few chapters of the book when it released, but wasn’t drawn into it, and certainly hadn’t realized that the main narrator was going to be the computer. It was a surprise to me how this story grew on me more and more as I listened to it. I had thought I was going to be bored, and that the plot wasn’t ever going to go anywhere, because so much of the book in the beginning is the ship describing itself. But as you venture further into the story, you realize that the ship is building a knowledge of how to relate a story on a level that is succinct and easy to understand from a human point of view. After adjusting to the narrative style, I came to feel that telling the story from the ship’s point of view was brilliant. I never would have expected to become emotionally attached to a ship in a story such as this, yet I did.

The story opens in the middle of a multi-generational outer space voyage to a potentially inhabitable moon in a far off planetary system. The ship frames the narration as seen through the life of a girl named Freya, as she grows up, deals with normal changes of aging, and learns the many facets of the ship that she’s living on. The ship will reach the moon within her lifetime, but there are challenges such as genetic mutations, sicknesses, and declining food crop growth.

It is one of the most practical takes on long-term space travel that I have read, and it addresses issues that sometimes get ignored in other space travel books. Some of the issues discussed are: difference in passage of time between those on the ship and those on Earth because of high-speed interstellar travel, potential loss of mineral resources (those that are necessary for life), social issues such as limiting birthrates because of limited ship space, etc.

While I wasn’t a huge fan of the same author’s book 2312, I liked Aurora so much that I will continue to follow Kim Stanley Robinson’s work. This book is well worth the time it took to become invested in the story.

 

The Beautiful Bureaucrat: A Novel by Helen Phillips – Published August 11, 2015.

I’m starting to think that I should avoid novels written authors who are mainly writers of short stories. That’s not to say that they aren’t good, but this is the second time this year I’ve taken a chance on a novel written by a short story author, and the second time I’ve been plunged into weird fuzzy surreal hallucination-like settings. I happen to know people who love those kinds of stories, but they are not for me. When I read the blurbs, the first word that Ursula K. LeGuin was quoted as writing about this book it was, “funny.” I beg to differ. I found nothing amusing in this book, though I will admit that the author’s writing was clever and witty in some parts, at no time did I feel that it fell into the realm of “funny.” In fact, the parts that might have appeared humorous to others were the ones that I found to be the creepiest. The story was filled with sadness, poverty, mind-numbing work, relationship issues, and a main character who seemed to be hallucinating half the time. Some of the rest of the LeGuin blurb was, “sad, scary, beautiful” – that I can accept as a decent description, although I think “beautiful” is a stretch.

Given that so many critics seemed to like it, and many of them also found some weird humor in it, I will concede that my tastes may not be sophisticated enough to appreciate it in the same way. I’m okay with that.

Posted in Art, Audiobooks, Autobiography, Book Reviews, Children's Books, Fiction, Library Book, Literary Fiction, Memoirs, Middle Grade Fiction, New Books, Nonfiction, Novels, Sci-fi, Science Fiction | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 12 Comments

Magonia by Maria Dahvana Headley – Review

Posted on July 22, 2015 by At Home With Books

magoniaMagonia is the unusual fantasy story of a teenage girl named Aza Ray, who suffers from a unique disease that makes it so difficult for her to breathe that she is often at death’s door. At first Aza Ray’s story of sickness seems to be going along as if it were fiction set in our present day world. She and her best friend Jason, who are both oddballs in their own way, soldier on through all of the challenges that her ill health presents. It seems like the beginning to a normal YA fiction book, but then the oddest things start happening and it veers off into the realms of fantasy.

The first half of the book was lovely, at least as lovely as a story can be when it’s about a girl dying of a mysterious illness affecting her lungs. The second half of the book was a fast-moving adventure story that I had a hard time putting down. However, it really made me work overtime to suspend disbelief, which is silly because it is so obviously fantasy. I just have a harder time accepting weird illogical plot devices, like flying airboats, sky sharks and whales that cause storms, etc. when they show up in a modern day setting. Had this been a steampunk book, or had it taken place on another planet I wouldn’t have given it a second thought. It is to the author’s great credit that I couldn’t put the book down despite the fact that my mind spent a ridiculous amount of time trying to distract me from the story by pointing out that people should have seen the ships and sky animals more often, especially with all of the commercial flights.  That all of the technology of our time should make it so that people can easily detect the sky animals with all of the satellites and thermal imaging available. It was a little bit like taking a mythology story and grafting it over a modern day YA novel. And when I think of it like that I actually like the story more. I really did enjoy the story, there were just aspects that I thought were unrealistic and a bit odd.

*Spoilers* For example, there is a part of her chest that opens up to admit a bird, and that raises the question: how can it open and close without affecting the air pressure in her lungs (collapsing them) or introducing germs? The whole thing with the bird in her chest just freaked me out and made me uncomfortable. I had no issues with any of the other special skills that she had, just with the bird, so I guess it’s just a matter of how different and strange fantasy elements can get without pushing past your own personal levels of what you think is plausible in a story. *End Spoilers*

I would have liked to have had a bit more of an ending as far as what the characters will do next, but I did look online and found out that the author is already working on a sequel.

Posted in Book Reviews, Fantasy, Fiction, Library Book, Young Adult | Tagged , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Find Me by Laura van den Berg – Review

Posted on June 7, 2015 by At Home With Books

FindMeThis novel follows the story of an orphan girl who is one of the few people who remains unaffected by a highly contagious disease that destroys people’s memories and then they die soon afterward. She is chosen to go to a special medical facility to research those who are immune to the disease. It sounds like a potentially great story, but I have to admit that it wasn’t my favorite.

Find Me was written in a stream-of-consciousness style, and in present tense. These are two of my reading/writing pet peeves, but I was willing to overlook them because the premise of the story sounded good. The first half of the book was dreary and depressing, filled with gloomy flashbacks, but that was okay because it fit the character of the narrator and her history. I was happy to see that the plot was starting to move along at a quicker pace in the second half, but then it had even more of a stream-of-consciousness style and the whole thing took on an aura of dreamlike unreality and there were some uncomfortably strange characters – I feel like I would have understood them more, given them more of a chance, had they been described and related in the story more clearly. It was like trying to understand characters in a long free form poem. And I started wondering if the main character was dreaming or drugged, because everything she encountered was so weird. Then it ended without really explaining much of anything to the reader.

*Spoilers ahead* There was no explanation about what the sickness was that caused people to forget, you find out the end fate of the people in the hospital but not the hows and/or whys. And even though there’s the possibility of her meeting the woman she thinks is her mother, that too is never known for sure. *End Spoilers*

The whole book was an exercise in reading frustration for me. After I was done reading I flipped to the back cover flap and read the author’s blurb. It stated that she has published short stories but that this is her first novel. It was a moment of revelation for me because it made me realize that this style of writing that I don’t care for, it has a lot of the same elements of certain short stories that I can’t stand, mainly the dream-like state and the open ending.

I think that the author had some interesting plot ideas, but her writing style was not my cup of tea. I think that those who like open-ended short stories may have a better reading experience than I did.

Posted in 1 Star, Book Reviews, Dystopian Fiction, Fiction, Library Book | Tagged , , , | 5 Comments

Claire North – A New Favorite Author

Posted on May 6, 2015 by At Home With Books

The best book that I read in 2014 was The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North. It was a fascinating and charming story about a man who discovers that after he dies, he starts his life over at the beginning, and he can remember his lives each time. It had some of my favorite themes in it, like the second chance to live life over again, and then a third and a fourth, etc.; and seeing what opportunities the character seizes, and how he deals with it all emotionally. Of course there is a mystery factored in – there is a secret society and a deadly villain who starts targeting Harry’s allies. In short, it was a perfect fit for me, and I savored it during many hours of my sons’ swimming practices last summer.

When I heard that Claire North had a new book out called Touch, I put it on hold at the library sight unseen. I was willing to take a chance on anything that the author of The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August had written, and I was not disappointed.

For the sake of simplicity, I am going to refer to the main character of Touch as “he.” The main character has the ability to switch bodies by touching someone. A blessing in some situations, a curse in others, he must learn how to navigate situations discreetly in order not to give himself away as an imposter. He thinks that he has been covering his tracks well, but then someone tries to kill him, and he can tell that they aren’t just targeting his host body, but actually targeting and following him even after his moves to new bodies.

There were passages in the book that made me pause to take note of the fabulous writing. The author would use a turn of phrase and in just a few words a character would come to life. In short, I wish that I could write like she does.

I do see some parallel elements in her two books with characters who live over long periods of time, and in multiple lifetimes of a sort. Both books also have someone chasing after/hunting down the heroes, but they were different enough in concept and detail that I think they are equally enjoyable in their own right. If I had to choose one over the other it would be The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, and I think that’s mainly because I read it first.

I haven’t been this excited about finding a new favorite author since I read my first Connie Willis novel and then realized just how many other books she had already written. I look forward to reading many new books by Claire North in the future, and because of that I did some research and found out:

  • Her next book, The Serpent of Venice, is due out November 3, 2015. It’s part of the Gamehouse series, and the other two books (The Thief of Bangkok, The Master of the House) are also listed as releasing on November 3, 2015.
  • Claire North is a pseudonym, and the author’s real name is Catherine Webb, and under that name she has written eight young adult novels.
  • One of her other pseudonyms is Kate Griffin, under which she writes fantasy novels.
  • And now I’m off to the library catalog to put some of her other books on hold. It’s like Christmas!

For those who are interested, I found an article in which she explains why she has chosen to use pseudonyms.

It’s such a treat to have discovered new books by this author while writing this post! Every once in a great while I will discover an unread book by a favorite author, more often than not it will be a novella or a short story that is supplemental to a favorite series.

Have you ever discovered that a favorite author has an unexpected backlog of previously published books?

Posted in Authors, Fantasy, Fiction, Library Book, My Favorite Reads, Science Fiction | Tagged , , , , | 7 Comments

What I’m Reading

Posted on April 27, 2015 by At Home With Books

Right Now I’m in the Middle of:

androidsdreamThe Android’s Dream by John Scalzi

I found this book recommended in the comments section of an article about science fiction book awards.

Description via Amazon:

A human diplomat creates an interstellar incident when he kills an alien diplomat in a most…unusual…way. To avoid war, Earth’s government must find an equally unusual object: A type of sheep (“The Android’s Dream”), used in the alien race’s coronation ceremony.

To find the sheep, the government turns to Harry Creek, ex-cop, war hero and hacker extraordinaire, who with the help of Brian Javna, a childhood friend turned artificial intelligence, scours the earth looking for the rare creature. And they find it, in the unknowing form of Robin Baker, pet store owner, whose genes contain traces of the sheep DNA.

But there are others with plans for the sheep as well: Mercenaries employed by the military. Adherents of a secret religion based on the writings of a 21st century science fiction author. And alien races, eager to start a revolution on their home world and a war on Earth.

To keep our planet from being enslaved, Harry will have to pull off the greatest diplomatic coup in history, a grand gambit that will take him from the halls of power to the lava-strewn battlefields of alien worlds. There’s only one chance to get it right, to save the life of Robin Baker — and to protect the future of humanity.

Books I might read next:

Without You, There Is No Us: My Time with the Sons of North Korea’s Elite by Suki Kim

I found this book via a review in BookPage.

Description via Amazon:

Every day, three times a day, the students march in two straight lines, singing praises to Kim Jong-il and North Korea: Without you, there is no motherland. Without you, there is no us. It is a chilling scene, but gradually Suki Kim, too, learns the tune and, without noticing, begins to hum it. It is 2011, and all universities in North Korea have been shut down for an entire year, the students sent to construction fields—except for the 270 students at the all-male Pyongyang University of Science and Technology (PUST), a walled compound where portraits of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il look on impassively from the walls of every room, and where Suki has accepted a job teaching English. Over the next six months, she will eat three meals a day with her young charges and struggle to teach them to write, all under the watchful eye of the regime.

Life at PUST is lonely and claustrophobic, especially for Suki, whose letters are read by censors and who must hide her notes and photographs not only from her minders but from her colleagues—evangelical Christian missionaries who don’t know or choose to ignore that Suki doesn’t share their faith. As the weeks pass, she is mystified by how easily her students lie, unnerved by their obedience to the regime. At the same time, they offer Suki tantalizing glimpses of their private selves—their boyish enthusiasm, their eagerness to please, the flashes of curiosity that have not yet been extinguished. She in turn begins to hint at the existence of a world beyond their own—at such exotic activities as surfing the Internet or traveling freely and, more dangerously, at electoral democracy and other ideas forbidden in a country where defectors risk torture and execution. But when Kim Jong-il dies, and the boys she has come to love appear devastated, she wonders whether the gulf between her world and theirs can ever be bridged.

 

Power Forward: My Presidential Education by Reggie Love

I’m not sure where I first read about this one, but I knew I wanted to read it when I saw that it was a memoir of the author’s time as “body man” to the president.

Description via Amazon:

Reggie Love is a unique witness to history, whose introduction to Washington was working in Junior Senator Barack Obama’s mailroom. As “body man” to Obama during his first presidential campaign, Love’s job was to stay one step behind the candidate, but think and act three steps ahead during a typical eighteen-hour workday. As President Obama’s personal aide during that momentous first term, Love sat yards from the Oval Office and often spent more time with the President than anyone else. While his experiences were unique, the lessons he learned during his tenure with the President are universal. Persistence. Responsibility. Passion for a cause greater than yourself. In short, maturity.

Love has been singularly lucky in his mentors. At Duke University, where he was a walk-on and a captain of its fabled basketball team, Love learned from Coach Krzyzewski that sports builds character—from President Obama, Love learned that how you conduct your life defines your character.

Accountability and serving with honor were learned during unsought moments: co-coaching with Malia Obama’s and Sasha Obama’s basketball team with the President; lending Obama his tie ahead of a presidential debate; managing a personal life when no hour is truly your own. From his first interview with Senator Obama, to his near-decision not to follow the President-elect to the White House, Love drew on Coach K’s teachings as he learned to navigate Washington. But it was while owning up to (temporarily) losing the President’s briefcase, playing pick-up games in New Hampshire to secure votes, babysitting the children of visiting heads of state, and keeping the President company at every major turning point of his historic first campaign and administration, that Love learned how persistence and passion can lead not only to success, but to a broader concept of adulthood.

Posted in Fiction, Library Book, Memoirs, Nonfiction, Science Fiction | 6 Comments

The Sunday Salon – April 12

Posted on April 12, 2015 by At Home With Books

Sunday-Salon

Last week I read:

Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls by David Sedaris (audiobook)
When Books Went to War by Molly Guptill Manning
Yes Please by Amy Poehler (audiobook)
The Lightning Tree by Patrick Rothfuss (short story)

It wasn’t until now that I look back on my reading for the week that I realized the only fiction that I read was the short story. Fans of Patrick Rothfuss’ Kingkiller series won’t want to miss this short story told from the point of view of Bast, who works at the Waystone Inn. It follows him over the course of an immensely entertaining day, in which the reader discovers just how mischievous and devious Bast is. The story can be found in the collection entitled Rogues ed. by George R. R. Martin. The collection also contains stories by Connie Willis, Neil Gaiman, and a new Game of Thrones story by George R. R. Martin.

Of the nonfiction, I have to say that all three books were good in their own way.

When Books Went to War – this book tells about how the Armed Services Editions (ASE) of books came to be and how they were distributed first to soldiers, and then later to European countries in hopes of countering, at least in a small way, the destruction of tens of thousands of books by the Nazis during World War II. I was especially fascinated by the political machinations that went on behind the scenes (the discussion of censoring titles for the troops), and the dedication of librarians across the country to the cause of supporting books for the troops and countering attempts at censorship. I especially enjoyed the firsthand accounts from soldiers of how the books inspired them during horrible times.

Yes Please by Amy Poehler – This book is Amy Poehler’s memoir about her life growing up, becoming a comedian, her career and motherhood; the biggest focus is on her life as a comedian. As one could expect, this is a very funny book because Amy Poehler is a very funny lady. I highly recommend listening to the audiobook because, in my experience, comedy is more enjoyable when rendered verbally, especially by the comedian who wrote the book.

 

Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls by David Sedaris – This is the first book that I’ve read (in this case listened to) by David Sedaris. I remember years ago picking up his book that had a Christmas title, Holidays on Ice, and not getting far because I thought his sense of humor was off-putting. There’s nothing like revisiting an author at a different time of life to see if it strikes a chord. As I listened to this book, and found myself bursting out laughing at the oddest moments, I also thought at the same time that on a personal level I found the author incredibly annoying and at some points offensive. I was trying to describe him to my husband and then closest I could get was to say that he was kind of off-putting like Lewis Black, but very soft-spoken and obsessive-compulsive, but even that isn’t quite accurate. Making direct comparisons doesn’t really work I guess, other than to say that his writing is in essay form, so it’s not quite like stand-up comedy, yet is still pretty funny. He exaggerates at times for comedic effect. He talks a lot about traveling in foreign countries, yet this book isn’t quite a travel memoir, although that aspect appeals to me. His descriptions of sanitary conditions in China make me never want to visit, and his story about his dad hounding him to get a colonoscopy was silly and funny. I don’t think his humor is for everyone, especially not for those easily offended.

Posted in Audiobooks, Banned Books, Essays, Family, Fantasy, Fiction, Library Book, Memoirs, Nonfiction, Short Stories, World War II | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

The Girl on the Train – I Almost Quit This Book

Posted on March 3, 2015 by At Home With Books

I feel like I’m the odd one out in thinking that The Girl on the Train was just okay, because most of my friends absolutely loved it. While it was a quick read, I actually found myself thinking thoughts in the first fifty pages like, “Oh my goodness, will something please actually happen!” and “These horrible people are so depressing! Won’t the main character ever do anything but weep in a drunken stupor?”

Things do happen eventually, which kept me from giving up on the book, but it was a near thing. I was just about to set the book aside for good when I gave it my last ditch effort (I flipped to the back and read the ending to see if something exciting took place) and after that I did want to know how the characters got from where they were at to the dramatic ending so I kept reading.

Was it worth the effort? It killed a few hours on a cold afternoon. I would have been content to read it on a plane or in an airport and at least not have been bored. But did I like it? Well… it was just okay. The writing was decent, but I couldn’t get past the overall gloom of the atmosphere and the depressing nature of every scene in the book. The whole thing was one big downer with a couple of exciting conflicts at the end.

In short, it was not my cup of tea, but obviously it hits the spot with other readers.

Posted in 2 Stars, Book Reviews, Fiction, Library Book | Tagged , , , | 16 Comments

It’s What I Do & Deep Down Dark – Mini Reviews

Posted on February 26, 2015 by At Home With Books

It’s What I Do: A Photographer’s Life of Love and War by Lynsey Addario is one of the best memoirs that I’ve read in a long time.

First off, let me say that the book is fantastic, not only for the writing and the descriptions of harrowing experiences in war zones, but also in physical quality. It is printed on heavy glossy paper and has many photos included throughout the text.

The stories of the author’s adventures; her daring and boldness, sometimes to the point of risking her life; are compelling and at some points heart-wrenching. I would describe this book as a combination memoir and war zone travel account that covers not only the Middle Eastern conflicts, but also her early days in Latin America and more recent times in Africa.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in photo-journalism, current events in the Middle East and Africa, and travel memoirs.

deepdowndarkIn Deep Down Dark, Hector Tobar has pulled together the individual stories of the thirty-three miners who were buried in Chilean Mine for an unprecedented sixty-nine days. I was impressed that the author was able to pull all of the miners’ stories together into one narrative without it becoming overwhelming, confusing, repetitive or dry. In fact, this book was a surprisingly quick and interesting read.

The author moves from the perspective of one miner to another as he pulls the threads of their own personal stories together into one coherent tale, and we get to see the personal dramas that played out both underground and above-ground.

I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys survival stories, as well as to those who are interested in the dynamics of how groups of people behave in stressful situations.

Posted in Book Reviews, Library Book, Memoirs, Nonfiction, War | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments