Two hits and a miss

Happy New Year to all readers.


Okay, first the miss.  I was traveling recently and had extra time to spend in the airport.  Rather than buy a book I just got ideas for future books to read and then have put them on my library list.  The first of these books was Ego is the Enemy.   This book sounded interesting and I thought I'd give it a try.  The basic premise of the book is that one doesn't have to be an egoist to be successful and then continues to tell one how to get control of your own ego.  I read the first few chapters but this book never caught on with me.  I'm in no danger of becoming a superstar in whatever field I venture into.  This just wasn't pertinent to my life and so I freed up my reading time for something else.

That something else was The Magnolia Story.   If you've ever enjoyed the HGTV show "Fixer Upper", then I think you'll like this book as well.  The Magnolia story chronicles the lives of Chip and Joanna Gaines from when they first met until approximately early 2016.   They certainly seem to be the same, down to earth, fun people they are on the show.  As either Chip or Joanna tell their part of the story, the type face changes.  I thought that was a great way to help identify who was talking in the book.  In my library system, this book is classified as a biography and I'd agree.  There is little in the way of decorating tips or business advice.  I'm glad I checked it out from my library as it doesn't seem a book I'll want to re-read.  None the less, I enjoyed reading it and definitely recommend it to fans of the show.

My second hit is a book called So Long A Letter,  by Mariama Ba.  I can't recall exactly where I found this recommended but it may have been on a list of African Literature.  So Long A Letter, is a work of fiction.  It tells the story of Ramatoulaye , writing to her college friend and describing her life after the death of her husband.  I found it fascinating to read on several levels.  First was the story of this woman, somewhat like me, as a wife and mother and how those roles were important to her.  Secondly was the view into a post-colonial Senegal and the Muslim culture there as it effected her marriage and the start of her widow-hood.   If Ramatoulaye was a real person, I would like to know her and have her as a friend.  The insights the author presents as the character talks about changing roles of women in the society, dealing with religious strictures, being a mother, even her love for her bigamist husband are interesting to anyone regardless of their culture and status in life.  It is a relatively short book and well worth your time.

The Compound Effect

I'm taking a goal setting course for 2017.  This book, The Compound Effect was mentioned in an aside and I picked it up to read at my local library.
It's a short book, a quick read but if you're ready to make some changes in your life, this is a good place to start.  It is under 200 pages, including references and includes links to the author's website that are still active even though the book was published in 2010.
Mr. Hardy starts with the example of would you rather have $3 million today or 1 cent today that doubles every day for a month.  He goes on to show how small changes in what we do can, OVER TIME, have large effects.   For example, cutting out 100 calories per day won't cause you to lose "10 lbs in a week" but you might lose 10 lbs in a year, relatively easily.
Not only does the book cover personal, physical changes but finances, motivation and how those you surround yourself with affect you.
If you're interested in trying to change your life, don't wait for New Years, pick up this book today.

A short quick review

Like everyone else, I've been busy lately so here is one really short review. At the beginning of November, our book club read Graced and Gifted by Kimberly Hahn.  Chosen and Cherished is the first in the series and Beloved and Blessed is the third and final book.  Our consensus was that this was a great book but less applicable to us, older women.
The chapters are short and easy to read and the book is set up as a multi - week study.  A great option if your group meets weekly.  This book also would make a great wedding present for a young woman in your parish.  Kimberly shares several stories from her life to illustrate her points.  Even though the target audience seems to be for women just beginning their vocation as wives, it is still worth reading if you are not.  I just wouldn't suggest it as a one and done book club selection.

Playful Magic

I recently finished Melanie Rawn's Touchstone (Glass Thorns)   .  I had picked up her Window Walls at my library and after a short reading discovered it was a sequel to this book.  After reading lots of fantasy, Rawn presents the Ogres, Fairies, Picksies, Elves, etc with a different twist - in her world, all these people have intermarried and most of the characters are some mix of these with humans.

Touchstone is about the founding of a magical theater group and focuses on two of the quartet - the "tregetour" or playwright and the "glisker" the member of the troupe that manages the magic provided by the playwright.  The main character, the tregetour Cade, is part wizard and as such, has visions of possible futures.  These visions drive the story.  Who should he hire, what should the name of the group be, how seriously should offenses within the group be taken.

The book reads a bit like a diary - we went here and did this.  The overarching plot, if there is one, is a bit hard to discern.  For the first book in a series ( Glass Thorns), I understand that it is necessary to set the stage for the future books.  However, this was a bit slow, even for that.  If establishing the framework for the other books in the series, Touchstone could have been a novella rather than a lengthy novel (368 pages according to Amazon).

If you want to start a new series, this might fit the bill.  Otherwise, I can only give it a lukewarm referral.

Saving the Library

This book is going on my list for when someone says they want a "nice" book or a "happy" book.   I found this book, Louisiana Saves the Library,  while browsing in my local library a few weeks ago.  It took me a bit to get around to actually reading it but once I did, I was hooked, and wanted to know where the story was going.
The main character, Louisiana,  is a northerner by birth, living in Louisisana, teaching library science at a small college.  After lay-offs at the college, the divorced, single mother of two small children and her best friend end up at the small Alligator Bayou parish library and start breathing new life into it.  Along the way, she also finds a new house and someone to help her fix it up.  Louisiana finds the strength to stand up to her ex-husband, save the library in her new parish and build a new life for herself.
The cast of  supporting characters is realistic to anyone who has lived in a small town where change is slow and everyone seems to know each other..  While the main character is involved in most of the action in the book, the supporting characters are interesting and have lives of their own.  The "blurb" for this book at Amazon does not do a good job of representing the book, in my opinion.
This appears to be author Emily Beck Cogburn's first book.  I'll be keeping my eye out for more books by her in the future.

My other happy book is The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

Wasteland King

It's been longer than I thought since I've posted so here's a quick review.  Lilith Saintcrow  latest book in the Gallow and Robin series Wasteland King (Gallow and Ragged) is out and wraps things up neatly.  It's been a few weeks since I've read this book so this will likely be shorter than normal.
The story opens with Gallow waking in the Winter King's dungeon.  From there, he enters into an untold bargain with the Winter King involving the use of the King's horn ( which calls the Unseelie/Wild Hunt).  We then jump to what is happening to the other characters.  The story does jump around a bit between the main three characters as well as introducing and spending entire chapters on new characters,  only to kill them in the next few pages.  This happened far to often in my opinion and detracted from the flow of the story.
To wrap this up, if you like Urban fantasy, ( Cassandra Claire???) and want a different take on the fairy world, then check this series out.

Book Club!!!

We're getting ready to restart our book club after a break for the Summer at my Parish. We won't actually meet until the end of September so perhaps saying we're ready is a bit premature.  It was a bit of a struggle to decide which book to pick.  Not so much because my choices were overwhelming but just having to overcome the inertia of not doing it all Summer.  Once the book was picked then there starts the wait of getting in in the bulletin and giving everyone 3 or more weeks to read it.  Starting late means that we'll probably only get 3 books read and discussed before the end of the year.  Trying to read a book in November and one in December is a bit much for our group and our busy schedules that time of year.  Now to just figure out how to get more people to join us.

Once my friend helped me pick the book, Little Sins Mean a Lot: Kicking Our Bad Habits Before They Kick Us, I became way more excited than I thought I'd be. Well begun is half done is true in this case.   I've been reading this book while I walk my dog in the evenings.  Short, easy to digest chapters that still manage to say a lot.  It will be interesting to hear what others think of it.  While we'll discuss it in one session, this book could easily be broken down by a chapter per week over 13 weeks.

This is our second book by Elizabeth Scalia.  We read Strange Gods earlier this year or perhaps at the end of last year..  Based upon what I've read of Little Sins, I think she's going to go on some sort of autobuy list for any future books she writes.  If  Strange Gods wasn't my favorite book club book it would be close.  I'd have a hard time deciding which book I liked better - Strange Gods or Keep it Shut. The later book is Bible study on mastering the use of our tongue.  The former is a discussion by Ms Scalia about how we can make ideas - education, political views, etc - good in and of themselves, into little gods by placing them between us and God.  If you're on Facebook, I'm sure you've seen this.

Dragons

While it's always a bit sad to have a series come to an end, Naomi Novik's League of Dragons (Temeraire)  is a satisfying conclusion to a great series.  And while the subtitle is" The Last Temeraire novel", I believe she  has left the door open for novellas or short stories involving these characters.  If you like history or fantasy, then I recommend this series.

If you haven't read any of this series, a few lines of background.  With the exception of one element, this series could easily have been characterized as historical fiction.  Novik has created a world that we would recognize, with the additional element of dragons. These aren't your traditional fire breathing beasts so common in many stories.  Think, rather enormous horses that can talk and reason.   All the societies of the world have incorporated dragons in to one extent or another.  In China and South America, the dragons are seen as equals to humans (or benevolent guardians of humans).  On the other hand, in Europe, they are simply beasts of burden used by the military..

League of Dragons finds our heroes Laurence, a former British naval officer and Temeraire, his dragon traveling west across Europe finishing the fight against Napoleon.   The place of dragons in European society gets challenged by Napoleon's machinations and is an important side plot.  I only wish I knew more history to judge the accuracy of her story.  For example, did part of the armistice to get Napoleon off the throne involve putting his son on it?  It does in this story.

If you're looking for a new series to start on, like history or dragons, then pick this one up.

The Colossus Rises

Seven Wonders Book 1: The Colossus Rises  is another youth title.  I'd guess the target audience for this book is middle school but that doesn't mean that the story line or writing are boring for adults.  This book, the first in the Seven Wonders series ( as in the 7 wonders of the ancient world) was a relaxing yet engaging read.  I think a blog that I read recommended it but as I haven't bookmarked the blog, I'll have to wait until she posts again to find out.

Unlike the Percy Jackson books in which the heroes are demigods, in this series, the young heroes are descendants of the last ruling family of Atlantis.  This relationship becomes known about the time they turn 13 and develop a lambda mark on the back of their head.  When a secret organization discovers these youths, they swoop them off to a small island in the Mediterranean and train them to use their abilities and recover lost Atlantean artifacts.  As the title indicates, this first novel has the team traveling to Rhodes.  Being the first book in the series, most of the book is dedicated to introducing the team and helping them get set upon their path.

If you liked the Heroes of Olympus series or enjoyed reading the 39 Steps, then add this to your list.  I'm getting ready to start the second book in the series,Seven Wonders Book 2: Lost in Babylon

David Gregory

I can't say that I ever watched David Gregory on Meet the Press ( or Tim Russert for that matter) but I did enjoy his book How's Your Faith?: An Unlikely Spiritual Journey   .  The subtitle is "An Unlikely Spiritual Journey", and this book is about his spiritual journey as an adult to both define what his religion means to him and how to live it out in his life.
The Dewey Decimal system number for this book is 204 - classified as religious experience, life and practice. That's a great description for this book. David Gregory makes no secret of his difficulties with the divorce of his parents and his alcoholic mother but this largely serves to set the stage for the rest of the book.  Mr. Gregory takes the reader along with him as he seeks out various religious leaders of different faiths and experts to help him learn how to deal with pain, love, purpose, sacrifice, humility, doubt, surrender, and forgiveness.  
David Gregory's wife, a Christian, made the decision to raise their children as Jewish.  This is not a decision I would have made but the book exposes the struggles both have made to do this and the joys that have come as well.
If you're looking your next book, consider this one.

Godzilla

Yes, you read that correctly, this is about the novelization of the recent Godzilla (2014) .  If you like monster movies at all - who remembers watching the original 50's and 60's versions of Them, The Thing, I was a Teenage Werewolf? -  you'll enjoy this movie too. While the production values are much higher, the 2014 movie is a throwback to those movies.  The movie didn't win any awardsbut the cast, including Ken Wantanabe, Elizabeth Olson, and David Strathairnn, is excellent.

If you like a movie or TV show, you'll probably like the novel that goes along with it.  For the "classics" the original books are undoubtedly better but don't discount this movie novelization or others.  Everyone deserves a little bit of relaxing, easy reading from time to time.  When reading a book based upon a movie, TV show or game I enjoy picturing the characters as I have seen them on the screen. With vocabulary like Brobdingnagian and effulgence the author doesn't write down to his audience.  On a side note, the author, Greg Cox, lives relatively near by in Oxford, PA.

A mystery.

Finally a fiction book I can wholeheartedly recommend.  If you're looking for a fun read,
Gretel and the Case of the Missing Frog Prints: A Brothers Grimm Mystery  is it.  This is the first in what is currently a three book series.   The author P.J. Brackston, has written a prequel to this one but it was actually published later.

The Gretel of the title is That Gretel ( a schtick that is repeated in the book.)  She is a grown woman and lives with her brother Hansel ( Hans).  To support the two of them, she has become a detective   In this book, a messenger arrives at her door, hands her a letter requesting her services and dies.  Two drawings by the artist Albrecht Durer have been stolen from the Nuremberg apartment of one of his heirs.  Gretel and Hans make their way to Nuremberg and she begins to work on the case while her brother and his hilarious school friend, their host in the city, take part a sausage festival.   After an appropriate number of twists and turns including the help of some talking mice, our heroine triumphs not only in her case but in her personal life as well.

I enjoyed this book.  After several books that were a chore to finish, this one was a breeze.  The cast of characters was easy to keep straight, a few fantasy elements made it into the story and I learned a bit of art history as well.  I wasn't able to find any evidence that Albrecht Durer actually did any frog prints but I could find his rhinoceros print that is mentioned in the book.  I'm going to keep my eye out for other books in this series.

Five Years in Heaven

Yet another "friend " book.  My best friend mentioned that she was reading Five Years in Heaven: The Unlikely Friendship That Answered Life's Greatest Questions , so I checked it out of the library and read it.  I'm happy for her that she really liked it but it was a slog for me.

I really wanted to like this book - it has a nun in it!, it's written by a fellow Catholic!, and it's about friendship. Rather than disliking the book, perhaps it's better to say I just didn't care for it.  Only discipline got me through this book.

What didn't I like about it you ask?  There are too many holes in the story.  The book is memoir of the author's relationship with an elderly nun he meets running an errand with a friend and how it grew over a 5 year period.  It bothered me that the author was stingy with information about the dates he knew Sister Augustine.  The book's description of when the events take place is shallow.  Oh, there are some dates mentioned, the Sister's year of birth, Christmas, certain weeks before or after Christmas.  It just felt unnecessarily coy to me.  Why not include the years this happened?

The cover of the book mentions answering Life's Greatest Questions.  Well, Sister mentions she wasn't afraid to die as she viewed death as going to her reward.   Love is important.   God is in control.  All of these are true and wonderful but the author's writing style doesn't present the answers in any coherent fashion.   His description of his own education, family life, and faith makes him seem as if he is a well catechised individual.  There is nothing in the book as to why these questions were such issues for him.

Memoirs ARE about the person writing them but this one left a lot of unanswered questions.  Did John ever paint with Sister Augustine?  What effect did the money from the ceramics sales have on the Benedictine convent?  What was the name of his cookbook?

Enough complaining and now for the positives.  I enjoyed getting to know Sister Augustine through the book.   John Schlimm writes in a pleasant conversational style   I'm glad to be returning the book to the library.

Elusive Salvation

Elusive Salvation (Star Trek: The Original Series)  is one of the latest, if not the latest book, in the on-going Star Trek series.  Kirk and Spock are the main characters from the Enterprise, although Drs McCoy and Chapel do make brief appearances. This book is set prior to the events in the Wrath of Khan movie and touches briefly upon the theme of genetic engineering.  The basic plot has a new race coming to Star Fleet / the Federation for help.  Important information was lost on Earth in the mid 19th century.  The new aliens are seeking this information as a way to correct genetic engineering forced upon them.  No trace of this information can be found in the "current " time so Kirk and Spock travel back to the 1980s to find the information   In the past (1985), Kirk and Spock enlist the help of Roberta Lincoln, who was first introduced in the TV series episode "Assignment Earth".  As you can probably guess, the lost information is found and our heroes return to the future.

It's been awhile since I've read a Star Trek novel and it may be a long time before I read another.  I had to make an effort to finish this book.  The cast of characters was large and I was left with the feeling that somehow this was a sequel to another book and, as the reader, I should have known the characters.  Unfortunately, there was nothing in this book to say what that other book might have been. Nor was there any addendum to provide any information on these characters.  I searched for one of  the other characters on a well known Star Trek Wiki but couldn't find him.  While an important story element is time travel,  the narrative jumps around in time, although each chapter is started with the year that the events described occur..

Big Magic

A friend commented that she was reading   Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear . I had read Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia  and enjoyed it so I thought I'd give Big Magic a try.  I don't think of myself as a creative person and it doesn't bother me a bit.   I'm just not the tortured artist type.  Her approach to dealing with creativity as if it were a living being, to be welcomed, nurtured, and not forced into a relationship was refreshing.  I've urged almost my entire family to read it.   I thought it was a bit vulgar at times ( call me a Victorian if you will), and didn't like her martyr/trickster analogy at all

It's an easy read with short chapters and many subsections in each chapter.  I think reading it inspired me to finally start on this blog.   In short, you don't have to be a creative person to enjoy this book.  I'd rate it a defininte B+

The Hidden Oracle

I said I was starting this blog to talk about the books I read.  Since I haven't talked to many people about the them, it may take a few books to get my format figured out.

Ok, how many AARP eligible people read books for kids?  Childrens' librarians for sure.  Well, it's not my job and I do.  At least some.  I've read Rick Riordan's Heroes of Olympus Series, his Kane Chronicles, and have started the Magnus Kane series.  This book,   The Trials of Apollo, Book 1: The Hidden Oracle  is the start of a new series.     I enjoyed this book, it was a bit of a light refresher between some non fiction books I was reading.

This new book takes place within Riordan's Percy Jackson sphere.  In fact, Percy makes a brief appearance at the beginning and end of the book.  If you've enjoyed the other demi-god books, I think you'll like this one.  A brief summary - The Greek god Apollo is punished by Zeus and sent to Earth as a human teenager. A lot of the book does contain Apollo whining about being a human but the cast of characters is reasonably well developed and you come to be interested in what happens to them.

If you like to read mythology, have enjoyed other books by Riordan or have an Elementary school aged friend to read with, I recommend this latest edition.

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Why another blog

If you're reading this, you probably either know me or stumbled across my blog.  Thanks for staying long enough to read my first post.  I love to read but have eclectic tastes.  What does that mean?  Well, in this case it means that I usually have no one to discuss what marvellous or disappointing book I just read.  In 2015, I read 36 books - I'm on track to ready closer to 48 this year.   Some were quite short ( How Full is your Bucket  120 pages  by Tom Rath and Donald Clifton .  I recommend it!)  Others were long ( The Aeronaught's Windlass at 630 pages by Jim Butcher.  I haven't read a book by him I didn't like.)  Only the few I read with my book club at St. Mary of the Assumption Catholic Church (Keep it Shut,  Strange Gods,  Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World,   Nine Words , and The Hiding Place  did I get to share and discuss with anyone.

This blog will be my place to talk about the books I've read.  Don't expect any New York Times best sellers, unless they are non-fiction.  It will be heavy in the fantasy genre, including Y books ( Rick Riordan is another favorite.   I also read a few mysteries but usually nothing too gruesome.  There is already too much terrible news in the world without trying to read about it for enjoyment.

Well, my first review will be coming soon.  Just a matter of deciding which book it will be.