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.