This book caught me by surprise. It was not at all what I was expecting and I enjoyed it despite myself. Many users of Goodreads categorize this Thorton Wilder novel as a Classic. I think my criteria for a classic may be higher than most and I’m not sure I would include this, but it was a great book. It won the Pulitzer in 1928. As I said, I enjoyed this book and I didn’t think it was going to be a page-turner, but I did burn through it. The fact that it was only 138 pages definitely helped in that aspect.
This is a very hard review as the author’s story is so very heart-wrenching. Marina Keegan was an extremely bright young woman with a great future in writing ahead of her and her life was cut short. The book is a collection of short stories. It was the Goodreads Choice Award for Nonfiction in 2014 and a Waterstones Book of the year nominee in the same year. The book is good. It is well written. I think Ms. Keegan had a very promising future as an author. I enjoyed all the short stories, but in my humble opinion it was not more than a 3/5 star book.
Who would have thought that a book about a man gone fishing would be so interesting? I found myself completely sucked in with the Hemingway’s writing. Of course, this is what is expected for a writer of his caliber. I mean the guy won the Nobel prize in literature! I knew the name before I had read any of his work and I knew that his writings are considered classics. I flew through this short story with only 132 pages. Now that I have had an introduction to Hemingway’s work, I can’t wait to read more.
Several years ago I was at a conference where Neil deGrasse Tyson presented. I was very impressed with his grasp of the all this science stuff and the way he was able to speak at a high level and not lose all these non-experts in the crowd. The Pluto Files: The Rise and Fall of America’s Favorite Planet is his story of how Pluto lost its title of Planet. He, as you may know, was very involved in that development. The book is well written but goes a little long in some chapters. This book could have been pared down a bit to make it read a bit faster. This could have been a long article in a science publication. That would have been a better fit then trying to stretch it out with a bunch of filler. At 176 pages, it would have been fine with 100 or so.
In 1947 the Salinas Valley native, John Steinbeck wrote The Pearl. This short (97 page) story is written in a time far ago in a little village. Some young people file a very fine pearl and it changes their lives. On the whole, I found the prose wonderfully written. That is after all that I have come to expect from this epic writer. Reviewing this is hard since I like the writing but the story was so sad, it would not be a book that I would want to read again. Since I had recently read The Red Pony which had some sad stories in it too, maybe that is a good comparison. I think I liked the Red Pony overall better. Maybe because it was longer, maybe because it wasn’t as sad. Either way, this book is worth a read if you haven’t read it before. But “mentally prepare” yourself.
I’m a fan of Bill Bryson. It all started with A Walk in the Woods. Yes, the book that was recently made into the 2015 movie A Walk in the Woods. I really loved A Walk in the Woods when I listened to it on a long road trip. Since, then I have read several of Bryson’s Books. I tried A Short History of Nearly Everything, but I was unable to finish it. I found it very long winded and not very funny at all, but that was a long time-ago and I want to go back and try that one again. Most recently, I read Shakespeare: The World as Stage. I liked it. I was not a stuffy history on all the Bards work. It was very readable.
I’ve read a lot more of his works but let’s get back to Notes from a Small Island. I checked this book out because I read the New York Times book review Bill Bryson’s ‘The Road to Little Dribbling’ and I was very excited to read Bryson’s newest work. But there was a problem. This book is actually the second in a series. I had not read the first. You guessed it, Notes from a Small Island was the first in the series. Written in 1995, the book follows Bryson around the UK as he tries to see some of his favorite places again and some places he has never seen. The New York Times review of Notes from a Small Island was not as glowing as his newer work. Michiko Kakutani, gives his review that is not as I said glowing, but okay. I wasn’t extremely excited to read an okay, book, but I thought well Mr. Kakutani doesn’t know Bryson, like I do. I’ve read a lot of his work and I find him funny.
As he travels through the country largely using public transportation and walking he regales the reader with his dry pithy humor. His particular humor does make me laugh, but it was often employed by making fun of famous (or at least known) personalities from the UK. Example, “the landlord was as fat as….. or the dense twit was worse than …..” I just didn’t get these references. This book seemed to be targeted at Brits. At least to really understand these references. That being said there is a lot of humor that you can understand, even if you don’t know anyone from the UK.
This YouTube video review of the book gives you a good idea of what I mean of the UK humor. This obviously is done by a UKer:
Long blog post short, I gave this book 3 stars. Just average. However, if I had understood more of the jokes, this would have been an easy 4 star book.
Wow! This is an outstanding adventure/science fiction/fantasy/thriller. I guess it is young adult. I don’t know why I’m draw to so many young adult books recently. Anyway, the genre doesn’t really matter to me that much. This is just such an outstanding work. I related to the characters instantly. I was draw into their life right from the start. At around page 50 I knew the book was very good. At page 100, I thought this is a 5 star book! By 150, I thought this book might just be my favorite book of 2016.
The settings were wonderfully done, with just enough description to not in get in the way of the story. When I had to put the book down, I made it my priority to pick it up again. The bad guys in there were very bad and you wanted them dead. You just were grabbed and thrown into the main characters wild ride. There were surprises and twist that I didn’t see coming.
Red Rising Signed
Possibly the best part about this book was that I got it free from Comic-Con straight from the author and it is signed! Even though, this book was free my opinion is my own.
My friend Tim recommended this book to me. Tim reads a lot of sci fi and if he gives something a rare 5 it is very good. The last recommendation that Tim gave me was The Martian which was my favorite book of 2014 and the goodreads choice winner for 2014. Red Rising was also a 2014 goodreads choice winner. If you want a exciting and thrilling read, read Red Rising today! I’ve already ordered the next two books from Amazon: Golden Son and Morning Star. I’m really looking forward to reading Golden Son. I will devour these books!
Three standouts out of 9 books. I think I liked Graham’s book more because I was excited to read what Rory Gillmore’s mom wrote. Plus, it was read by herself, which is always the best in an audio book. Cold Comfort surprised me. I was expecting a more stuffy book than I got and I enjoyed how nosey the main character was. The remains of the day was different, it was stuffy, but it really worked with the story in this case. The Darth Vader graphic novel was very good. I may have short changed it slightly as goodreads only allows whole number scores, this is much closer to 5 than four, but its not perfect. If you read one of the books above make it Darth Vader. I can’t believe I don’t have a post on that. I will have to so something about it.
As far as the 100 book challenge goes, I’m a head of schedule. I read more than 8 books in January and I read 9 in February, so, I’m good. So far in March, I’ve read a bunch of graphic novels. I’m in good shape.
The copy above it not the copy of Wuthering Heights that I listened to. I listened to the audio version of the book. I’m not sure if that was the best choice. I think this is a book to read in its paper form. Maybe I would have appreciated it more then. I was not taken with the story or the characters. Everyone was so upset at each other. All the characters did was continually yell at each other.
This book read to me like a very dramatic soap opera. It just seemed so over the top I couldn’t relate to the characters and they were so insane and upset constantly, with their laid back lives. It was just to ridiculous to me. I didn’t understand why Cathy did as she did. I felt bad for Heathcliff, until he went insane.
I went on to watch the made for tv movie filmed in 2009. I thought that maybe if I saw the movie I might care more for the story and characters. I have to say that the movie did help a little, but it wasn’t enough to elevate the memory of the book in my mind. The most peculiar bit is that my copy ow Wuthering Heights was read to me by a Romulan also, known as Carolyn Seymour.
Carolyn Seymour
In addition to being read to my a Romulan I also got to tick another book off my BBC 100 list! Almost, half way through that list.
I feel torn by this book. I’m not sure what to think. I liked the story. I liked how it was a completely new world that didn’t draw on anything else that I’d ever read or watched. I grew to like some of the characters and I never new were the author was going with the story, so it was very unpredictable. And everyone who has reviewed Truthwitch by Susan Dennard, loves it. 75% of the reviews are 4 or 5 stars and there are 5,500 reviews.
This book is immensely popular right now and everyone loves it. It is the story of two women who are close friends and an adventure they go through, where one finds love. However, this is just the first book in a series that is still being written so if you read this you will not find closure at least not until the other books are out.
I didn’t love the writing in this book, I found it a little too 50 shades of grey in places. That just doesn’t appeal to me. I’m sure I would be bored to death with a romance novel. Still I can read the driest of history or science novels in complete rapture so it can safely be said I’m not the average reader.
This all being said, this biggest question I have coming out of this book is not about anything I read in it, because its just not that interesting. The question I have is will the second book be worth reading? Do I like these characters enough to care what happens next to them. I’m truly on the fence about it. I feel like this world has a lot of potential. Thats why I am going to give this book 3 our of 5 stars. I’m in the minority here only 16% of people gave this book 3 stars.
