book review - Jason’s Feed

Book Review: The Lathe of Heaven

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Ursula K. Le Giun is the woman! She is an amazing weaver of science fiction stories. She will completely immerse you in her stories and make you believe the unbelievable. I love her work. I recently finished the first Earthsea book and I can’t wait to read the rest. This book takes you on an incredible journey asking the question what if what you dream came true? At first, if you are like me, you think awesome, all my wishes coming true. Alas, we forget our nightmares. Also, who is to say how your dreams will be interpreted? This is just a fascinating read. Highly recommended.

Book Review: Grendel

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This is a delightful book! Great prose and a very original idea. One of my favorite books is Beowulf. This is a twist on that story. John Gardner asks us what if Beowulf was told from the monster’s point of view. I don’t want to say much more and ruin this read for you. I really enjoyed this fantastic story and would highly recommend for anyone who is a fan of the original Beowulf. I was delighted to find this book. It’s a short read and you won’t be disappointed. Give it a shot.

Book Review: The Bad Beginning

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This is the first in a series of books that follow some “unfortunate” children along with their sad story. It was written by Lemony Snicket which is the pen name for Daniel Handler. The books are very popular and well read with young readers. So much so that even though there was a movie release in 2004 for these books there is another slated for 2017. For my part, it was not a bad book, but a little too juvenile for me. I think my 8 years old might like them, but they are very sad. So, I have not yet recommended them to her. There are other more inspiring stories for that age set.

Book Review: The Red Badge of Courage

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This is one of those books that you get to and your like “Why haven’t I read this before”. I should have probably read it in high school, but I have not gotten to it until now. This is another classic that surprised me. I really enjoyed this far more than I thought I would. My average rating was 3 in 2016 and this book was a 4, which I think says a lot. It is not my all time favorite book but I would read it again. The book is about a young man’s experience joining the war effort. Very good. I really recommend.

Book Review: An Open Heart: Practicing Compassion in Everyday Life

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This book reads as a little instruction book on how to be compassionate. It was a good book to read after the depressing David Sedaris book Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk: A Modest Bestiary. If that book said everyone is awful, this book said, maybe but you can still be compassionate. Don’t be evil, be a nice person. I always like the stories told in the books with the Dalai Lama as the author. Not that he writes much of the book himself mind you. He has a writer do the work and they kinda get a feel for what he wants to say from the Dalai Lama’s speeches and interviews. I have two notes from this book that I think are worth sharing with you:

It is difficult to hold back from anger when provoked unless we have trained our mind to first recollect the unpleasant effects such thoughts will cause us. It is therefore essential that we begin our training in patience calmly, not while experiencing anger. We must recall in detail how, when angry, we lose our peace of mind, how we are unable to concentrate on our work, and how unpleasant we become to those around us. It is by thinking long and hard in this manner that we eventually become able to refrain from anger

Compassion is the wish that others be free of suffering.

Book Review: Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk: A Modest Bestiary

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This book wins the strangest book of 2016 award from me. It is a bunch of short stories where the main characters are animals. I get what Sedaris is trying to say here, but the book is still strange and the stories can be violent and disturbing. I feel like the main idea here was people are animals and they suck. In my humble opinion, there are other things I’d rather read that don’t have this message. Can’t recommend.

Book Review: Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man: A Biography

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I thought this would be Thomas Paine’s work, but instead, it was a commentary on that work by Christopher Hitchens. Hitchens is a staple on talk shows and lecture circuits. It seems that what he has to say resonates with a lot of people. I’m not one of them. I wanted to read Paine’s original work so that is my mistake that I picked up the wrong work, but being the stubborn oaf that I am, once I started it I wanted to finish it. I don’t like leaving things half done. I had to slog through this book and didn’t really enjoy any of it. I can’t recommend this work to anyone, but it won’t stop me from trying Hitchens other works like God is Not Great.

Book Review: On the Road

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The American masterpiece that is often credited with launching Kerouac’s career. A book that most people like and others love. I just didn’t care for the book at all. That may make me wrong, but my blog, so my opinion. I listened to this fiction classic of a young man’s hitchhiking journey across America. Maybe if I would have read the print book things would have been different. It just seemed to be a rambling work floating from one place to another with no idea of what was happening or where it was heading. That just didn’t appeal to me.

Book Review: The Sense of an Ending

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This was my first Julian Barnes novel. I’ve never read any of his work and I can’t tell you how I came by this book. Probably a blog recommendation or something, but I’m glad I read it.

I read this book in a day and was just sucked into the story. A man who thinks he has left his past life behind him is pulled back into it again. It was a good read and one of the few books that I read in 2016 that was from an author in another country, so yea me for boarding my reading. It has several awards:

Man Booker Prize (2011)
Warwick Prize for Writing Nominee for Longlist (2013)
Costa Book Award Nominee for Novel (2011)
Europe Literatuurprijs (2012)

Book Review: A Man Without a Country

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This was an extremely entertaining book. Kurt Vonnegut is a talented author! This is one of the few books I gave a 5/5 rating to in 2016. The man is brilliant and witty. I breezed through this 146-page book in very little time. It was a pleasure to read and when I had to put it down I looked forward to picking it up again at my first opportunity. I recommend getting started with his works as soon as you can, and this particular novel is definitely worth your time. Give it a chance I think you will be happy you did.