Latest good reads

With our internet down, and Harry not home for most of the weekend, I did lots of reading!! And it was lots of fun - ate popcorn too!!

I'd had this on my shelf for over a year - it was a good, fast, compelling read. I like the Shannon Hale books - they sell well, so there must be an audience out there. This one had a "vampire" touch that I'm sure made it especially popular. It's a nice twist on an old fairy tale.

This is very funny!! Definitely chic-lit, but pretty well written. Maybe you have to be from the San Gabriel Valley to appreciate it - but I wish I'd had this on the plane when we were going through turbulence - it would have distracted me for sure!!

I'm in the middle of Left Neglected - same author as Still Alice. So far it's a good read - well-constructed too.

A day late and a dollar short -

Funny story: I bought this book two or three years ago. Never read it. Tossed it when I did a book purge a year ago - not really a toss, gave them to the library.

Then coming home from Boston, I needed a book to read - we had delays, etc. and I had run out of reading material - and this was the only thing in the airport bookstore that wasn't trashy or a romance. So I bought it again.

It was a good read - got "dark" at times and was substantially "gritty" but it did have a good plot line. I liked the way they had a story frame with the present day. Apparently that's not as major in the movie as it was in the book. One friend thought the movie was better.

I know everyone else has already read it and is talking about the movie.

I need to get more circumspect about buying/tossing books!

Still Alice

We were in Boston, and I had completed the book I had brought - it had become pretty compelling, so I was unable to leave it for the flight home!! We were downtown at the Expo, which is connected to the Prudential Center, which is connected to the mall. And there was not a children's play place - except in Barnes and Noble - so we headed over there.

Well, being stuck in a book store is not such a bad thing. I browsed the stacks of "new fiction," "new paperbacks," "staff recommendations" but couldn't anything that struck my fancy.

I saw this title. Eliza said a friend of hers had read it and thought it good. I read the back cover and it sounded like something I would like to read. It's a story about a brilliant Harvard professor who comes to discover that she has early-onset Alzheimer's.

It was a very compelling read. (I use that word a lot - but I can't find another word that describes a book you just keep reading - instead of doing other things you ought to be doing!!) I am impressed at the number of authors in the various fields of science and medicine who come up with interesting plot lines and take the time to write books. This author is a neuro-scientist, so the book really rings true.

But it's also a very human story, and it is well-written. The pacing is effective - you find yourself getting sadder and sadder as the story progresses. I will not spoil it with the plot development, but the author has very effectively drawn the reader into the lives of Alice and her family.

Give it a read - and let me know what you think!! (The reviews I read online were basically in agreement with me - so they must be right!!)

The latest Maisie Dobbs

I was looking for something to read in Barnes and Noble while Harry was at the Expo on Saturday. Eliza informed me that there was a new Maisie Dobbs book - and so I got it.

Just finished it. It was vintage Maisie Dobbs - a few surprises though!!

Give it a read!!

Latest read

We are here in Boston - and I'm using Harry's computer - which I don't use extremely well - I don't do well with laptops - I need a mouse and a regular keyboard. So no illustration this time.

But I just finished The Postmistress by Sarah Blake. I chose it rather randomly - it was on the shelves at the recent bookfair at Clifton - they always have a shelf of books for parents to buy - and I knew I needed a book for the upcoming plane rides I was scheduled for.

But random works - this time anyway. It started slowly, and I was a trifle confused at first. But once the story took off, it was pretty compelling.

There are problems with the story line, but the writing is excellent. There is an underlying theme about the power of words, which is the theme that spoke most clearly to me.

The time frame is the very beginning of World War II. The author has made some changes to dates and actual events to fit her story line. But it all works.

A good airplane book - even a good read at home book. If you've read it, let me know what you think.

A great read

The title for this book comes from the Hippocratic oath which admonishes the physician against "cutting for stone," and refers to the practice of cutting out bladder stones. Apparently these developed from the drinking water. They were fairly easy to remove also. However, the surgeons, who were often just barbers, were not hygienic in the practice. Many died the next day from severe infection. Hence the oath warned against a medical practice that was unsafe, and possibly unnecessary.

One of the reviewers I read explained the significance of the title, and then criticized the author for not fully developing the idea of unnecessary surgery. Although the story is not about unnecessary surgery, it is about unnecessary loss - that ultimately appears to be redeeming.

It's also a fascinating geo-political history treatise that alone would make for compelling reading. The story of conjoined twin boys born to a nun and a surgeon - you're thinking it's something you want to read aren't you??

The author is a physician - and a fine writer also. I have noticed that frequently doctors who become writers seem to do well with the skill of writing. Perhaps the attention to detail that is the hallmark of good medicine spills over onto the pages of the story.

Let me know what you think.

Testing...testing

Wowzers. I guess it has been awhile since I checked this!

A few books I have read in the past year or so that I found worthwhile...not particularly in order.

Major Pettigrew's Last Stand

These Is My Words - LOVED (and Star Garden and Sarah's Quilt)

The Water and the Blood - LOVED

The Glass Castle

Half Broke Horses

All the Maisie Dobbs books - hooray!!

The Help (I liked most of it, didn't love the ending)

Recently I have been skimming Malcolm Gladwell's books (Outliers, Blink, The Tipping Point) which I find compelling because of the anecdotes, but otherwise I find them very obnoxious! His books should really be trimmed down to longish New Yorker articles. Yet the stories keep me going back anyway.

Hidden Gifts of the Introverted Child (as recommended by Kacy, because I like her recommendations.... except for Gladwell but apparently I like him anyway) is interesting and I have been flipping through it.

Re-read A Midwife's Story and A Wise Birth and have been re-reading Birthing from Within. I LOVE Birthing from Within. She's a little "out there" with some of her stuff but I still love the book. I particularly love the chapter about how labor/birth is hard and you shouldn't count on being able to "transcend" it through meditation or breathing or even drugs. It's hard no matter what, even if you do have drugs and support people, but most importantly, it is doable and it doesn't have to be scary.

That's all I can remember reading after a quick skim of my Goodreads. I recently re-read Joy in the Morning and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn which I re-read every 5 years or so. Also re-read Huckleberry Finn, a classic of course.

Now I think it's time for me to get something new from the library.

What have you been reading?