This book was kind of a meh, for me. Peterson writes well, and a lot of his memories are interesting, but it just didn’t seem to resonate with me. Perhaps the lackadaisical, no real moral to the story, type of storytelling just doesn’t grip me personally, but it this book didn’t. Read More »
I Read a Lot of Books
I read a lot of books. Sometimes I review them.
American Adulterer: A Novel by Jed Mercurio
I hated this book. That is all you should really know, but let me go into the details. This “novel” details the life of JFK beginning with his Inauguration as President of the United States until his assassination. Mercurio calls it a novel in order to not do the due diligence type of research that a non fiction book of the same topic would require. Read More »
Justice For All: Earl Warren and the Nation He Made by Jim Newton
As I’ve mentioned before, sometimes I have a difficult time enjoying a biography if I don’t necessarily like the person the book is written about. To separate the book from the person is a challenge, so full disclosure, I think Earl Warren was kind of a jerk. And a bit of a hypocrite. Read More »
The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes
I approach winners of the Man Booker Prize with caution, having been lead astray down that path ONE two many times. Read More »
Love Goes to Buildings On Fire: Five Years in New York That Changed Music Forever by Will Hermes
In the preface Hermes writes that this is, “In a sense, an inspirational book.” And I am still wanting to know, in what sense? When a book claims it will inspire, I’d better be inspired, and it didn’t, and I wasn’t, and for this and other reasons, this book was one big fail. Read More »
Nothing To Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea by Barbara Demick
I must say, I loved this book. Absolutely loved it. It had all the elements of a wonderful non fiction: compelling subject matter, new information, and nice writing style. I am sad that this book isn’t a best seller, but not terribly surprised when I see the types of books that become best sellers. Read More »
Death in the Andes by Mario Vargas Llosa
Confession, I bought this book because my sister-in-law is Peruvian, and the author is a Nobel Prize Winner from Peru. Other than that, meh, I wasn’t sure what it would have in store for me. We all know my reluctance to read books by Nobel Laureates. Or perhaps you don’t. In that case, I generally find books written by Nobel Prize winners to be pretentious and not that great. There are a few exceptions, but this wasn’t one of them. Read More »
The Entomological Tales of Augustus T. Percival: Petronella Saves Nearly Everyone by Dene Low
You can ask anyone who knows me. I am easy to buy gifts for. Books and/or chocolate and you will get no complaints from me. My youngest brother got me this little gem for my last birthday. Apparently, he met the author somewhere and she chatted him up, and bam… off to Amazon.com he went. Read More »
Barack Like Me: The Chocolate-covered Truth by David Alan Grier with Alan Eisenstock
Ugh, I hated this book. Mercifully, it was written so that an elementary student could have gotten through it quickly had they wanted to… and I sincerely hope none would. Read More »
Operation Mincemeat: How a Dead Man and a Bizarre Plan Fooled the Nazis and Assured an Allied Victory by Ben Macintyre
I feel like I am on a WWII kick. I promise that I have been reading other things as well, but with the discovery of Macintyre’s interesting WWII books which detail the lives of spies and intelligence secrets… well, I might be on this kick for a while. Operation Mincemeat offers a different side of the WWII story. It does talk about specifics campaigns but focuses on the Intelligence community’s unique role in the strategic gathering and decimation of information. Macintyre’s book was well written and well researched. You can tell that his background is in newspaper journalism because each chapter is short and snappy, like a well written article.
The Green Bough by Ann Ritner
I love my husband… and every time I read one of these Peoples Book Club books that he found at a yard sale, I remind myself that I love him. I enjoy the fact that HE enjoys the fact that I love old books. As a result I plow my way through these ‘Christian fiction’ books with a smirk on my face. The Green Bough was no exception. Read More »
Fablehaven: Secrets of the Dragon Sanctuary by Brandon Mull
This is my favorite book in the Fablehaven series thus far. In my experience the books tend to start out slow, and pick up speed towards the end of the first third, then they gain speed, and by the end is rolling so rapidly that it seems like Mull is rushing to get everything in that he had planned. The fourth book actually kept a nice pace throughout and it ended in a bit of a cliff hanger which makes you want to read the fifth book as soon as possible. Read More »
Fablehaven: Grip of the Shadow by Brandon Mull
I approached the third Fablehaven novel as a fully invested (less skeptical) reader, and as a result I enjoyed this installment. The third book begins right where the second book ended, I am not sure that I enjoy that irregular timing, but is serves to move the story along swiftly and there is nothing technically wrong with choosing to start a book then, it was just unexpected. Read More »
Fablehaven: Rise of the Evening Star by Brandon Mull
I will admit after the first Fablehaven, I was a bit disappointed. I found a promising magical world, but characters that were slightly annoying. I was unsure if it was because Mull had a plan for the young characters to mature, develop, and grow on you. I decided to continue with the series on the hope (and hey, my brother lent me all the books so I had nothing to lose) and was glad that I did. The second Fablehaven book is much better than the first. Read More »
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
This book and I have history… I read a review before it came out and was very excited about it. Then, one of the defunct book clubs that I am a part of decided to read it. I was thrilled, then they decided to replace the selection with The Help *gag*. I was disappointed but always having 20 books or so on my to read shelf didn’t leave me time for moping. Read More »
Wicked Bugs: The Louse That Conquered Napoleon’s Army & Other Diabolical Insects by Amy Stewart
I recently moved to a house with a basement. And in the basement spiders lurk, everywhere! I was also reading this book while pregnant, which makes me a bit more sensitive to things. Needless to say, my skin crawled the entire time I read this one. The premise is something I can get behind, a non fiction book about the havoc that harmless little bugs can reap, but the book as a whole was not wonderful. Read More »
The Lampshade: A Holocaust Detective Story from Buchenwald to New Orleans by Mark Jacobson
You know I am a sucker for a real life detective story… and a real life detective story with Nazis… sign me up. There were so many things I enjoyed about this book, but a fair amount that I didn’t enjoy. Read More »
Who Do You Think You Are?: A Memoir by Alyse Myers
Every now and again I like to read a biography about someone I have never heard of. In this case it was an auto-biography, or memoir if you want to get fancy about it, written by Alyse Myers. I knew nothing about who she was, or why her life was important, but discount books are my weakness. Read More »
Death in the Stocks by Georgette Heyer
I didn’t like this book. There, I said it. It feels almost unfaithful saying something harsh about Georgette Heyer’s work. The woman practically formed every idea I have about Regency Era living, but I have to be honest, her mysteries aren’t great. I find she tries to be too clever, and too flippant, and too trite. Read More »
Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
I was pleasantly survived with The Hunger Games and eagerly read the second installment. This might have tainted my opinion of the book. If I review several books in a series, I try to review right after I read them, or not read them one after another. I find it hard to look at each novel as its own separate entity without comparing it to the others. Catching Fire, just might be a casualty of how much I enjoyed the first book. Read More »
In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin by Erik Larson
When I got this book, I was so excited. I love Erik Larsen’s books. I enjoy how he blends history and murder. I think his style is easy to get lost in. That is why In the Garden of Beasts was a huge disappointment to me. Read More »
Born Liberal Raised Right: How to Rescue America from Moral Decline-One Family at a Time by Reb Bradley
This book was a gift… at the time of the receipt of said gift, I had (okay I guess I technically STILL have just the one kid) one kid who was not yet a year old. So I am not sure if this was a reflection on my current parenting, or a future warning… either way, another book that didn’t need to be written. Read More »
Why Shoot a Butler by Georgette Heyer
I’ve made no secret that I generally dislike Heyer mysteries. This book is the rare exception. Why Shoot a Butler is another mystery set in a country weekend estate type setting with a lot of wealthy people hanging around each other seemingly shocked about a murder that has happened. I would hazard a guess that all Heyer’s mysteries have this similar setting, and sometimes it works. Read More »
The Mysterious Benedict Society and The Perilous Journey by Trenton Lee Stewart
When I think of the Mysterious Benedict Society books the words that come to mind are charming and whimsical. The second installment only increased my enjoyment in the series. This novel begins where the last adventure ended. Read More »
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
I resisted The Hunger Games for a long time. Why, you ask? Well, it seemed like it was the Twilight crowd that was jumping on the band wagon and saying how great the books were. No offense against that crowd, but Twilight isn’t exactly my thing. Read More »
Fablehaven by Brandon Mull
A few friends suggested this book as a young adult read, and when my brother offered to lend it to me, I couldn’t refuse. I thought this JUST might be the thing to jump start another wave of fiction reading, as I have been focused on non fiction for a while. Sadly, no. This book did not meet expectations. Read More »
Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
So we’ve finally come to the last installment of The Hunger Games Series. Straight off, I was disappointed. The story was not compelling in its entirety, nor was Katniss very likable, coherent, or believable in this last book. There are scenes within the book that I thought lived up to the promise of the original idea, but I found Collins using some pretty cheap literary devises to move time along quickly. Read More »
The Rasputin File by Edvard Radzinsky
Rasputin is one of the great characters in history. He features in countless novels, non fiction books, plays, and even cartoons. Often Rasputin is portrayed as a seducing villain who caused the downfall of the Romanov empire. Radzinsky sets out to present a real Rasputin, one who propagandists failed to present. Read More »
The Great Upheaval: America and the Birth of the Modern World 1788-1800 by Jay Wink
The wonderfully researched history follows the fledgling United States, France, and Russia as they navigate into the modern world. For non history buffs, the period of 1788-1800 includes all sorts of rebellion within the United States (Shay’s Rebellion, Whiskey Rebellion, etc), the French Revolution and murder of the French Monarchy, as well as the twilight of Catherine the Great and Russia as a world power. Read More »
Killing Lincoln: The Shocking Assassination That Changed America Forever by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard
I am always a bit skeptical when I pick up a book that someone AND someone else wrote. I get vicious flashbacks to university where I had to write papers in a group. Trying to fit your own writing style with the writing style of someone else… well, lets just say I hated writing papers in a group or as a pair. I don’t know how two people organize one set of thoughts, which is one of the problems with this non-fiction. Read More »