Book Challenge: July 2006

[Alkenny]

Just noticed there wasn't a new thread, so starting it for you Mamabug.

[konamama]

wow, more the half way through the year!

[Bufomander]

#135

The Bookseller of Kabul by Asne Seierstad

i'm only on page 91 (out of 288) but it's really interesting so i'm going to go ahead and post it so people know about it and so i can be subscribed to the thread. two birds, one stone.

It's non-fiction (shelved in the biographies at my library). Takes place in Afghanistan just after the fall of the Taliban. Seierstad, a Norwegian journalist, lives with Sultan Khan's (the bookseller in the title) family and shares that experience. Thus far, it's told very much like a story and the author is completely invisible (she speaks a bit in the foreword, but other than that, you don't hear from her).

[snozzberry]

Uh-oh...halfway through the year and I'm behind on my goal. I better get some reading in this holiday weekend!

btw, does clicking that "Thread Tools" link at the top of a thread on the right side and selecting "Subscribe to this Thread" do the same thing as posting to subscribe?

[Alkenny]

Originally Posted by snozzberry

btw, does clicking that "Thread Tools" link at the top of a thread on the right side and selecting "Subscribe to this Thread" do the same thing as posting to subscribe?

Yep, sure does.

[Queen Gwen]

There were so many good books listed in the June thread that I need to go write them all down before it drifts down to the bottom of the thread heap.

#27 Traditional Chinese Medicine: A Woman's Guide to Healing from Breast Cancer by Nan Lu

An unfortunate title, since it sounds like you should read this book after you have been diagnosed. Although it has info on how to use TCM concurrently with surgery and chemo, it has lots of info on prevention.

If you have any symptoms of PMS, those could indicate that your body is out of balance and could be a good "host" for breast cancer in future years. The idea is to catch the imbalance early and start using food, accupressure and qigong to realign yourself and build your qi.

Lu tends to repeat himself a lot, but I think he's just trying to make sure he gets his point across, especially to those who skip through the book. About every fifth page he mentions the importance of the liver meridian in women's health. Okay, Lu, we get it!

I learned quite a bit about TCM in general, a topic I'd now like to pursue in other books.

[Alkenny]

#78 The Passionate Vegetarian by Crescent Dragonwagon I finally got through this copy from the library and am off to buy my own.

[PancakeGoddess]

23.Tiger Rising, by Kate Dicamillo
from amazon
After Rob's mother dies, he and his father move to a new town to get a fresh start, he discovers a caged tiger in the woods. An emotionally rich story about a boy caught in the powerful grip of grief.

from me
wow, this was a read-aloud and my 9 and 11yo sons were captivated. I'm not sure how much they were tuned into the story of the tiger or the emotional lives of the characters. I know we were all bummed when mommy couldn't keep reading in the last chapeter because I kept crying!

[Astrid]

#54 Faking It by Jennifer Crusie

More summer fluff reading. This was sort of a continuation from the last book I read by her (Welcome to Tempation) although reading the first one wasn't crucial to the story

[cathe]

"The Way We Eat: Why Our Food Choices Matter" by Peter Singer and Jim Mason

Interesting book about the ethics of different diets. It was pretty good but not as good as I thought it would be.

"Ludmila's Broken English" by DBC Pierre

This was reviewed in the LA Times so I read it. It was strange - kind of good I guess - but definitely not a pageturner.

"My Father's Dragon" by Ruth Stiles Gannett

I recently bought this for my daughter because I remember loving it as a child. I reread it last night (needed something fun after those last two heavy books). It was as wonderful as I remembered.

[geek_the_girl]

I just started The Other Boelyn Girl. Ill let you know but I have a feeling that I will become quickly addicted to Phillipa Gregory.
I bought another Bertirce Small book yesterday..Its a continuation of the Sky O'Malley series.

[ZenMamaJen]

I know I'm a bit late, but may I join in?

This is kind of pathetic, but I was rather distracted the first half of the year, so I didn't read ANY books. It was sad. So far for 2006:

#1 - The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

I'm sure many of you have read it, so I won't summarize it.

#2 - The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

Really good; I'm almost finished and I just started it yesterday.

[charliedacia]

#3 Confessions of a Pagan Nun By Kate Horsley

From Amazon:

Confessions of a Pagan Nun" is set in Dark Ages Ireland and tells the story of the Christian nun Gywnneve. Her story is told in first person and the chapters alternate between events happening at the monastery and Gwynn writing about her pagan childhood and the events that led up to her conversion. Gwynn recalls with fondness her childhood in the tuath and learning the power of words from her wild and fiercely independent mother. When her mother dies, she goes to live with a group of traveling entertainers for a time and then apprentices herself to a reclusive Druid named Giannon. She falls in love with him and they live fairly happily together for seven years until he is kidnapped by those who fear he has become too powerful in an increasingly Christian land. Gwynn then leaves Giannon's cottage and spends years living in the wilderness and visiting tuaths occasionally for food and ale. After realizing where her hard drinking and living will take her, she decides to change her life and comes to the monastery of St. Brigit to translate the works of Augustine and Patrick. But when strange things start to happen at the monastery, Gwynn finds that her home may not be the safe and peaceful place that she had once thought.

This is a short but lovely and moving novel about a woman caught between two vastly different worlds. Gwynn has come to accept Christ's message (although she has a different interpretation of it than the church). However, she still believes in many of the pagan traditions and frequently muses on how both sets of beliefs are similar. Yet she knows that such thoughts are considered sins and immediately asks "May God forgive me." Gwynn still retains her independent nature and thirst for knowledge despite these things being frowned upon by the abbot and some of the other nuns. Although she believes that Christ has brought positive things to the people of her country, the church has brought only messages of fear and shame. This kind of thing clearly makes her a target. Although one can see the eventual outcome of Gwynn's situation, it doesn't make her fate any easier for the reader. "Confessions of a Pagan Nun" is a beautiful story about the conflict of religions and cultures and the power of women.

It wasn't as great as I thought it would be. I liked the beginning and the end. Every thing in between was kinda blah. It was worth reading but I would not reread it.

[Bufomander]

#136

The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins

This is a classic that I've known about/heard about for a while, and finally picked up at the library. It's one of the very very first detectivey/mystery stories ever written -- originally published in 1868. It's long -- about 550 pages but it was definitely a book that was interesting to me. I read it in two days -- I've had cramps those two days, so lots of reading was done in the bathtub. (let's just all ignore the fact that i took a library book with me to the bathtub, shall we?)

it also has some dry wit in it -- reminds me of some of the funny parts of dickens' stuff. yeah, i definitely enjoyed it and it was a good thing to read while in pain.

#137 Death of a Dustman by M.C. Beaton -- more in the Hamish MacBeth series set in Scotland. I think I only have five left til I'm caught up to her most recent one.

[fremontmama]

#37 The Motherhood Manifesto by Joan Blades
I thought this was a great book. It has some really wonderful ideas about how to make things better for everyone in our country. I hope we can accomplish some of the manifesto points and even start working on some others. Wishful thinking I know, but it never hurts to think positive. I would recommend this book!

#38 Not Buying It by Judith Levine

I saw someone else had read this earlier this year and thought it sounded interesting. I like the way she has examined bowing out of the consumer rat race and explored all the philosophical repercussions and exactly what that might mean in many ways. I like her writing style too. I'd recommend this one as well :

ps, while my number of 38 books so far this pales in comparison to some of you voracious readers, i still cant believe i have read this many books so far! woohoo!

[Bufomander]

#138 Marita: One Woman's Extraordinary Tale of Love and Espionage from Casto to Kennedy

from Amazon:

This tale relates how a failure of nerve at the last minute foiled CIA operative Lorenz's assignment to poison Fidel Castro--her lover and the father of her son. Writing with Schwartz ( DeLorean ), she describes her affair with the deposed Venezuelan dictator Marcos Perez Jimenez, whose daughter she bore, and a year she spent in a Venezuelan jungle with a lusty Yanomano Indian. She was also, she tells us, trained at a secret camp in the Everglades, along with CIA contract workers, mercenaries and counterrevolutionaries planning the overthrow of Castro. Almost casually, she relates how in mid-November of 1963 she drove from Miami to Dallas in a gun-laden two-car caravan whose occupants included Lee Harvey Oswald. But she left that band before she learned what their mission was. Although she was willing to try to murder Castro and lived among his enemies, Lorenz presents him as the only sympathetic--even noble--character in this chilling tale. She believes he was forced into his alliance with Russia by CIA-promoted U.S. hostility and false intelligence. And she contends that the losses incurred by the Mafia and CIA operatives when he shut down the gambling houses, and a Mafia vendetta against Joseph Kennedy, among other factors, may have motivated the JFK assassination. Lorenz testified before congressional committees investigating the Kennedy assassination, and tabloids of the time featured Mata Hari stories about her, but the tale in its entirety remained untold until now. Like other sensational conspiracy stories, this one presses the limits of credibility, but its very outrageousness gives it weight.

i don't know, sometimes i think i'm not skeptical enough. i don't feel like i know enough about this woman or this time period to know what to think of her story, but it was interesting to read...

[Astrid]

#55 Fast Women by Jennifer Crusie

Yet another fluffy, enjoyable summer read.

From Amazon.com
Emotionally numb from her divorce 18 months earlier, Nell Dysart is about to waken with a vengeance. When she takes a job as office manager for McKenna Investigations, she's determined to reorganize, redecorate, and revamp the stuck-in-the-'50s surroundings, but she runs smack-dab into senior partner Gabe McKenna, the immovable object to her irresistible force. Gabe likes the dated ambiance just fine and doesn't want a thing changed, but he soon learns that nothing in his life is going to stay the same now that Nell has arrived.

Rough and gruff, but with a heart of gold, Gabe is just what Nell needs to jump-start her hormones. Nell's formerly dull life is suddenly wildly active, for not only is she lusting after Gabe (and vice versa), but there's also a case of embezzlement to uncover, a dog to steal, and bribery to investigate.

Fast Women has well-rounded characters, an interesting mystery to resolve, and author Jennifer Crusie's trademark humor. In addition, Crusie gives readers a little something extra in her exploration of the emotional stages of divorce, the viability of marriage, and the value of self-honesty--all of which add up to an excellent fictional tale layered with a thought-provoking look at contemporary culture.

[cathe]

"Love in the Present Tense" by Catherine Ryan Hyde

Wow! This book was great. It's about a boy supposedly abandoned by his mother and the neighbor guy who takes him in. It was really touching without being sappy. I really enjoyed it.



Fremontmama - I'm going to request both of those from the library.

[rabrog]

#1 - Cereal Murders Diane Mott Davidson #2 - The Last Suppers Diane Mott Davidson #3 - Murder in Foggy Bottom Margaret Truman #4 - The Body Farm Patricia Cornwell #5 - Murder in Georgetown Margaret Truman #6 - From Potter's Field - Patricia Cornwell
Feb.
#7 - Cause of Death - Patricia Cornwell #8 - Flirting with Pete - Barbara Delinsky #9 - First Place - Carole Lewis #10 - B is for Burglar - Sue Grafton
#11 - Something Wicked - Carolyn Hart #12 - The Magician's Nephew - C.S. Lewis #13 - Unnatural Exposure - Patricia Cornwell #14 - Point of Origin - Patricia Cornwell
March
#15 - Black Notice - Patricia Cornwell #16 - The Last Precinct - Patricia Cornwell #17 - The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrob - C.S. Lewis #18 - Blow Fly - Patricia Cornwell #19 - A Horse and His Boy - C.S. Lewis #20 - Chamomile Mourning - Laura Childs #21 - Hollywood Divorces - Jackie Collins
#22 - Prince Caspian - C.S.Lewis #23 - Death by Design - Carolyn Hart
April
#24 - No Place Like Home - Mary Higgins Clark (great book!) #25 - Final Jeopardy - Linda Fairstein #26 - The Voyage of the Dawn Treader - C.S. Lewis #27 - The Peach Cobbler Murder - Joanne Fluke #28 - While My Pretty One Sleeps - Mary Higgins Clark #29 - Likely to Die - Linda Fairstein #30 - Unfit to Practice - Perri O'Shaughnessy (good book) #31 - Ths Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants - Ann Brashares
May
#32 - Conversations with the Fat Girl - Liza Palmer #33 - Killer Pancake - Diane Mott Davidson #34 - The Testament - John Grisham #35 - Honeymoon - James Patterson #36 - The Rule of Four - Ian Caldon and Dustin Thomason #37 - Suzanne's Diary for Nicholas - James Patterson #38 - Death by Inferior Design - Leslie Caine
June
#39 - Seizure - Robin Cook #40 - Cold Hit - Linda Fairstein #41 - Winter House - Carol O'Connell #42 - Babyland - Holly Chamberlin #43 - Deadly Greetings - Elizabeth Bright #44 - Needled to Death - Maggie Sefton
July
#45 - 4th of July - James Patterson #46 - Mutation - Robin Cook #47 - The Dead House - Linda Fairstein

Jenn

[cathe]

"What to Eat" by Marion Nestle

Well, I finally got through this huge book. It was amazing though - just chock full of info about nutrition of foods, marketing, supermarket politics - basically most questions you might have about what to eat and what to shop for is in this book. I initially checked it out of the library but when I got about 1/2 way through, I went and bought it. I have a feeling I'll refer to it often.

"The Boxcar Children" by Gertrude Chandler Warner

And then for some light reading. My daughter just read this and loved it so much, I decided to reread it myself. I remember loving it when I was a kid.