My latest read

 

I recently received this book as an advanced reader copy.  I enjoyed it quite a bit.  The writing was poetically descriptive of the land and the sea which were the backdrop for the story. The story took place in Scotland in the mid 1840s when wealthy landowners had embarked on a mission of clearing the tenant farmers off their land.  A minister who had recently joined the split from the Presbyterian church and who needed to earn money to tide him over before his new church was established, took on the paying job of going to a remote island to remove the sole remaining tenant.  Rather than being able to accomplish the task in a straightforward manner, the minister was seriously injured in a fall and was nursed back to good health by the tenant.  The two, even though speaking entirely different languages and having entirely different lifestyles, managed to develop an understanding of each other which led to an actual friendship.  Different people learning to appreciate and care for each other should be a lesson for us all in these chaotic times. I didn't give it 4 stars (I wish there were 1/2-star options) because I thought there was a little too much time spent on the definitions of Norn words, however. I still liked the book and will read more by this author.

Time to resume

 I've read many many books since I last posted, but there never seemed to be enough time to write reviews.  Actually, there was probably plenty of time, but whenever I finished a book, I was so anxious to start another that I didn't take the time to write about the one that was done.  I'm not saying I'll change that habit, but maybe I will at least post occasionally about book related things.

I like to have physical copies of books, and I like to keep many of the books I've enjoyed on my shelves.  So, I buy most of my books rather than borrow them from the library.  Used books are my preference.  I buy mostly from Thrift Books, Abe Books, and Better World Books.  They have good prices, good sales, and low minimum for free shipping. When finished with the books I either shelve them (if they're shelf worthy) or pass them on to others who would enjoy them. 

By 'shelf worthy' I don't mean that I didn't like the book.  For instance, I really enjoy reading mysteries, spy novels, detective stories, etc., but, excellent though they may be for their genre, they are not what I'd call great novels, so I usually don't keep them.  There are some good writers in this category...David Baldacci, Jeffery Deaver, Sara Paretsky, Harlan Coben, Olen Steinhauer, John Sandford, Lee Child, to name a few.  I am happy to highly recommend their books and to pass them on to other readers.  

Another day I will write about some of the books I keep.

The Midnight Line

Loves me some Jack Reacher!!  I haven't read a Reacher mystery for some time, since I've read all previous 21 of them, and was waiting for the price of the latest to come down to a manageable amount on the Thrift Books used book site. Our power was out for most of the day and evening yesterday, so I had time to read the whole book in almost one sitting, using my handy dandy book light once it got dark out (and in).

As usual this was a good mystery, with Jack, a former military MP, and current 'between jobs' kind of guy, doing his usual brilliant detective work. Besides just enjoying the character, the story was interesting, involving some issues of veterans' health care and opioid use. Also there was more than one strong female character, so yay for that.

Lee Child books are not great literature and don't claim to be, but they are great mysteries as far as I'm concerned. Child is probably at the top of my favorite mystery writers list, which includes John Sandford, John Lescroart, Michael Connelly, Vince Flynn, and Harlan Coben.

Now if only the latest Reacher novel, Past Tense, was available on Thrift...sigh.

The Reservoir Tapes

 

 

This book was a disappointment. It ostensibly was an interviewer's writing about the reactions of local residents to the disappearance of a young teenage girl. While I thought each individual story was interesting, I found it puzzling that nothing seemed to lead to any real information about the disappearance. Now, after looking at some other reviews, it seems I would have needed to read Reservoir 13, the author's previous book, first to have any real understanding of what this Tapes book was all about.

The Other Woman

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I thought the whole premise of this story was ridiculous. The main character was a wimp who ignored the most obvious of red flags. The methods of the 'other woman' were just not realistic. The ending was predictable. I can't say more without including spoilers, so suffice it to say I don't recommend this one.

The Half Brother by Holly LeCraw

I thought about giving this book 2 stars (it was OK) on Goodreads, but decided it was actually less than OK so gave it only 1 star (didn't like it).  I wasn't drawn to the characters at all. I didn't really care what happened to them, and what did happen was so predictable. The book was like soap opera plots which all revolve around people hiding the truth from each other. I wouldn't recommend this book. It was pretty much a waste of time.

Andrew's Brain by E.L.Doctorow

 

 

I thought this book, being by E.L.Doctorow, would be really interesting. Nope, it wasn't. I couldn't help thinking 'This is the same author who wrote Ragtime???"  I'm one of those people who, having started a book, is loath to not finish it, so I slogged my way through to the end of this one. I was mildly curious to find out where the story was going, what happened to Andrew, what was true, what was imagined, etc., but was disappointed in the results. The final ramblings about Andrew's time in Washington were particularly kind of laughable, and the ending was anti-climactic.

I like a book that I am eager to get back to after pauses in reading. This was not one of those books. I only looked forward to finishing it up as quickly as possible so I could move on to a much more engrossing book. I may have to rethink my self imposed compulsion to finish any book I've started.

Shelter in Place by Nora Roberts

Sadly, mass shootings are a big issue these days, so it was interesting to find a book with that as the theme. The story told of the feelings, and reactions of the victims and survivors, particularly detailing the lives of 3 of the survivors, both during and after the event in a way that seemed both real and insightful.

The characters were interesting and compelling, both strong and weak, both confident and hesitant, both negative and positive. The tragedy was a turning point which for most led to purpose in their lives.

The story grabbed me right at the first page and I found it difficult to put the book down. There was mystery, there was crime fighting, there was detecting, there was romance, there were strong women and equally strong men not at odds with one another. All in all, in spite of the subject matter, I really enjoyed this book.

(I received an advanced readers copy of this book through the publisher's Shelf Awareness giveaway)

The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins

   I really liked this book. I read some reviews where people didn't like it and thought it was a rather lame mystery. I, on the other hand, thought it was a gripping and suspenseful psychological thriller. I couldn't put it down. Yes, the characters weren't necessarily likeable as people, but they were sympathetic, and I wasn't sure 'who done it' until the end. I thought the author was pretty good at making me wonder about several of the different characters at various points in the book. I can't tell what else I thought was so good without giving anything away, so suffice it to say I recommend the book to anyone looking for a good, quick read mystery.

Wolf Hall by Hillary Mantel

  I read this book both because it had been made into a PBS series and because it had won a Man Booker prize. I have not seen the series yet, but would like to now. It's the story of Thomas Cromwell advisor to king Henry VIII in Tudor England. The book is long and I didn't really get into it until about 2/3 of the way through. I think it was worth my efforts to stick with it though. I was not that familiar with the story of England breaking away from the Catholic church and found it really interesting. Apparently Cromwell is often characterized as a manipulative, ruthless man, but Mantel takes a different approach, making him intelligent, thoughtful, pragmatic, and, yes, manipulative, but for, in his mind, good reasons. One thing that made the book difficult was Mantel's use of 'he' instead of Cromwell's name. Even knowing that, it was often hard to tell exactly who she was talking about, and it required back tracking a few paragraphs to figure it out. That added to making the book a very long read. I still would recommend it however.

 

Mantel has written a sequel, Bring Up the Bodies, which is the 2nd in a planned trilogy. I have a copy of it, but won't be reading it for a while. I need to read a bunch of quick-read mysteries and spy novels first :)

The Bone Labyrinth by James Rollins

  I gave this book 2 stars (it was OK) on Goodreads. If they had half stars, I might have given it 2 1/2 since I kind of liked it. It did keep me wanting to find out what happens next, but the whole tale was just a little too formulaic...hunt for a lost world and the origins of human intelligence which could change the destiny of human kind...oh brother. There were some interesting things written about early humans, archeological finds, Neanderthals, etc., and I appreciated the author's notes at the end, explaining which things were true and which were products of his imagination.

2015 (so far) in review

Having read 74 books at this point in the year (end of November), I thought I'd list the ones I really liked and the ones I thought were particularly great. I based the list on my Goodreads ratings where 5 stars mean 'it was amazing' and 4 stars mean 'really liked it'. I would like the rating system better if it had a genre category, but it doesn't. Some of the books I really liked were spy novels or murder mysteries...not necessarily great literature, but for the genre, they were good. I was sparing with the 5 stars, reserving that rating for books I not only really liked, but thought were extraordinary.

Here are two 4 star lists, first the mysteries then the others, in reverse order of when they were read:

MYSTERY

Return to Dust - Andrew Lanh
The Poet - Michael Connelly
The Vendetta Defense - Lisa Scottoline
Fever of the Bone - Val McDermid
Harvest - Tess Gerritsen
The Gods of Guilt - Michael Connelly
Blood Work - Michael Connelly
High Country Nocturne - Jon Talton
True Evil - Greg Iles
The Alibi - Sandra Brown
Long After Midnight - Iris Johansen
Shoot the Moon - Billie Letts
A Wanted Man - Lee Child
Criminal Intent - William Bernhardt
Never Go Back - Lee Child
Worth Dying For - Lee Child

OTHER

The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
The Art of Baking Blind - Sarah Vaughan
Sarah's Key - Tatiana de Rosnay
The Searchers - Alan Lemay
Interpreter of Maladies - Jhumpa Lahiri
A Fifty Year Silence - Miranda Richmond Mouillet
Eight Hundred Grapes - Laura Dave
The Kitchen House - Kathleen Grissom
The Lady from Zagreb - Phillip Kerr
The Loop - Nicholas Evans
The Nurse - Alexandra Robbins
The Alphabet House - Jussi Adler-Olsen


Here is the 5 star list:

What She Knew - Gilly Macmillan
The Zookeeper's Wife - Diane Ackerman
Outlander - Diana Gabaldon
The Hunger Games and the Gospel (non-fiction) - Julie Clawson
The Fifth Gospel - Ian Caldwell
The Nightingale - Kristin Hannah

Risky Undertaking by Mark de Castrique

  This story takes place in North Carolina and features an undertaker/sherriff's deputy, Barry Clayton, who becomes involved in solving a killing of a Cherokee activist. The story centers around the mystery, but also tells of some of the political issues existing between whites and native Americans, reservations and state governments, gaming and preservation, etc. Though involving a murder, the story is presented in a sort of light-hearted, very readable way. The characters seem true to life, especially in their conversations with each other. I was kept wondering how the mystery was going to be resolved. That was good, since I'm always disappointed when I solve the mystery before the book does. This was an enjoyable book to read, and I will look for other 'Buryin' Barry' mysteries, especially for light summer reading.

Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng

  This book is about a Chinese-American couple in the 60's and 70's that struggles with discrimination and its devastating impact on their lives. The story begins with the loss of their oldest daughter, then backtracks to tell of how the parents met, married and raised their family. The type of discrimination that affects them is not only prejudice against Asians, but against women. The family is seriously dysfunctional and the way it impacts the children is heart-rending.

 

The story is told variously from the viewpoints of all the family members, and we learn the thoughts and feelings that they kept hidden from each other with disastrous results.

The book was well-written and gripping from beginning to end. The author made the voices of each character seem very authentic. Though I didn't like some of their actions, I was able to see a little of what led them to act as they did.

This isn't an easy read, or a fun read, but is very thought-provoking. I highly recommend it.

Island of a Thousand Mirrors by Nayomi Munaweera

I definitely liked this book about how the civil war in Sri Lanka impacted the lives of several families, though I was bothered by a few things. I didn't get the title. Is this a name that the island is called? I found the beginning of the book a little slow going. There was a lot of family history of what turns out to be a main character later in the book, Yasodhara. Her and her family's story take up more than half the book. I was surprised at this point by the introduction of an entirely different family and character, Saraswathi, in part 2. There wasn't nearly as much history about her family. I might have liked it better if the two stories were more intertwined throughout the book. The descriptions of Saraswathi's life in the civil war really helped to describe what might lead someone to become a brutal terrorist. 

I did like that the book told the story from the viewpoint of both sides in the war. It seemed to say that the war was senseless, prolonged, brutal, and happened for no good reason. The stories of how it affected individuals on both sides of the conflict were well written. I hope this author writes more.

The Beekeeper's Ball by Susan Wiggs

This story is a romance, light-hearted at times, but with a side story of horrific WWII events in Denmark. Basically a young woman chef, Isabel, is starting a cooking school at her home in Sonoma valley when a renowned journalist, Mac, comes to spend time with her grandfather, Magnus. Mac is writing a book about the history of the grandfather's interesting life.

Everyone in the story had life altering events in their past which color their present lives. Isabel had a traumatic romantic past, so is reluctant to open up to the prospect of a new romance with Mac. Mac likewise had a sad experience in his past. Magnus survived the loss of his parents in the Holocaust and his subsequent time in the Danish resistance before coming to America and becoming the owner of the Bella Vista estate where he, Isabel and her sister live, tend orchards, and keep bees.

I always find war stories interesting, particularly those about WWII, so was very interested in the recounting of  events in Denmark told in this book. The way people who were so horribly persecuted survived and went on with their lives is fascinating. And it's always interesting to read the stories from personal viewpoints, even when the characters are fictional.

I was not previously aware that this book is the 2nd in a 'Bella Vista' series. Now I want to read the 1st, though I wonder if the story will be somewhat spoiled by knowing 'future' events already. I'll just have to read it and find out.

Alice Close Your Eyes by Averil Dean

I received this book as an ARC and read it in a day, more because I was curious about how it would end than because I actually liked the story. It seemed to be a series of explicit and increasingly sadistic sex scenes, loosely tied together by a story of a woman with a difficult childhood who was out to get revenge on someone who had wronged her in the past.

It was difficult to feel sympathy for the main characters, Alice and Jack. Since the story was told from Alice's point of view, there was some writing of her thought processes, but there was none for Jack's. I really had no idea where he was coming from or why he acted as he did.

I might have liked this book if it were more a straight forward mystery/psychological thriller, and less a reason to explore the deviant sex practices of the main characters. I think the author probably felt these scenes helped underscore Alice's need for pain, but I got the idea better from the other things Alice did.

Born to Run by Christopher McDougall

After reading this book I almost feel like taking up running myself. This is an amazing true story of one man's search for the best way to run without injury. As a writer for Runner's World he embarks on a journey to find the elusive Tarahumara tribe who live in the Copper Canyons of Mexico and are reputed to be some of the fastest runners in the world. In the course of telling his story, the author gives some history of long distance running, and of the development of running shoes. As it turns out, the more running shoes were used, the more injuries occurred. McDougall also tells some of the science of running in an easy to read and understand way.

McDougall was able to finally run without injury as he studied and adopted the style of running learned from some of the best runners and coaches in the world. The whole idea is that people are designed to run. We don't need the shoes with the extra support. They actually work against the foot's natural running ability. There's also a sort of mystical aspect to running in which the best runners are the ones who are the most unselfish and run for the pure joy of it.

This should be a must-read for anyone who runs, but also for anyone who enjoys a tale of a fascinating life.

The Tenth Witness by Leonard Rosen

What an interesting, thought provoking book. It's the story of a young French engineer, Henri Poincare, who the 1970's has designed a dive platform for searching for a sunken ship off the coast of Germany. While there he meets and falls in love with a German woman, Liesel Kraus from a wealthy industrialist family which got its start during WWII making steel for Hitler and the Nazis. Henri is hired by Liesel's brother, Anselm, to develop a way to extricate gold from old computers, but is troubled by the murky history of the family. When his adopted uncle, who had survived a concentration camp, dies, Henri is compelled to find out the story of the past that his uncle was never able to talk about. During his exhaustive research, Henri discovers connections between the Kraus family and the Nazi war effort, though 10 witnesses, who are now strangely dying off, declared that Otto Kraus, the family patriarch, had been of great help to the Jewish slaves who worked in the mills.

Along the way Henri has questions not only about the Kraus family, but about his own ethics as well. Is the expedient thing also the right thing, or is that only something he tells himself? How Henri deals with the truths he discovers was as fascinating as the mysteries he solved.

This book is a prequel to the author's previous book, All Cry Chaos, in which Henri is an older man, working for Interpol and on the verge of retirement. I hadn't heard of this book before, but now must read it!

Children of the Jacaranda Tree by Sahar Delijani

I really liked this book. It's a novel that follows the lives of children of political prisoners in Tehran, Iran, following the revolution in the 1980's. Some of the children were born in prison, then separated from their mothers. Others watched as their parents were arrested and jailed. Some parents were killed in mass executions, others returned to their families after many years. The children were raised mostly by relatives.

The story encompasses 3 generations....the grandparents and relatives who cared for the children when they were young, the politically active parents who were jailed, and the children themselves as they confronted the reality of life in Tehran as they grew to adulthood. The chapters are each from the point of view of one of the characters. At the beginning it is a woman prisoner in labor, giving birth in a prison hospital,  having her baby with her for a few months, then having to give the baby up to relatives outside the prison. Then we read of a father who sees his child once or twice, several years apart, and is finally killed. There is a chapter about an aunt who helps raise her nieces and nephews. Later chapters are about the children, both as children and as adults. All the characters lives touch and are intertwined in one way or another, as relatives or neighbors or friends or prison mates.

The story traces these lives through different regimes in Iran, and describes in such a personal way how people's lives were affected, how they suffered both from being silent and from being politically active and how the young people growing up dealt with so many frightening things in their lives...loss of parents, lack of freedom, fear of arrest, failed relationships, and so on.

I was especially interested in this book after having read Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi. There were many parallels, particularly in the lives of the women and the oppression they suffered. Reading Lolita is a true story.  Children of the Jacaranda Tree is a novel but I think based on the life of the author who was herself born in Tehran's prison. Delijani has told this story in a rich, poetic, and powerful way. I highly recommend it.