The Book Thief and Kindred

I just finished both of these books recently. I thought The Book Thief was really interesting. I loved the formatting of the book, which was really different. I also thought the overall story about a non-Jewish German girl in WWII was different and invoked a new sympathy for Germans. So yes, I liked it.

Next was Kindred for book club. Not one i would normally choose, nor would I choose it again. It is a Time-traveler-esque book where a black woman from the 70's keeps traveling back to the antebellum South to save her white, slave-owning ancestor. She often gets stuck there for months at a time while only seeming to be gone for a few hours at home. It is a good premise for a story as well as a movie, but I just didn't really like it. I don't know why. I think I like more thought-provoking books and ones that aren't purely for entertainment. So, it was a really fast read, but just not my favorite.

Right now I am starting on The Great Brain (a children's novel) and then I going to do My Antonia next...tentatively.

Alyson's

My ward just had our monthly book club meeting this week. This week we discussed the Giver and How Green Was My Valley (which is one of my all time favorite books). It was time to vote on books, so I thought I would just post what was chosen and anyone can feel free to read along, although I am up for reading others along with them, since most of these aren't really intellectual or more advanced reading material. Okay, so the list is:

September: Kindred by, Octavia Butler

The Great Brain by, John Dennis Fitzgerald

October: The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency by, Alexander McCall

The Alchemist by, Paulo Coelho

November: The 5000 Year Leap by, Cleon Skousen (his granddaughter is our club chairman)

Wild at Heart by, John Elderedge

So, feel free to read along and post your comments. I am actually really interested in reading the 5000 Year Leap, which is about the founding fathers, the constitution, and its lost meaning today. I am always interested in this kind of stuff because I think it is fascinating that someone can project the meaning of what people wrote hundreds of years ago onto this document. I am also curious to see if I agree, although I normally keep an open mind about interpretation and what their vision was for it. So, there ya go! And LauriAnn, I have already reserved a bunch of the books you posted about earlier. I would never have just picked up Polio on my own, so I am glad you recommended it.

Top 5

For Christmas this last year Joe got me Nancy Pearl's Book Lust Journal. From January 1, I have diligently recorded every book that I have read so far. My goal for this year is to read at least 50 books, and I reached the halfway point last night. I thought I would resurrect Alyson and my book blog with my 5 favorites of the year thus far.

1. The first book I read this year was Doris Kearns Goodwin's Wait Till Next Year, a memoir of her younger years and her passion for the Brooklyn Dodgers. This was a fun and easy read. I loved the description of her childhood in the fifties, and the changes she saw in Brooklyn as she got older. She also used baseball to build a relationship with her father, as she sat by the radio recording every play of the Dodger's game of the day for her dad while he was at work. Later she found out that the newspaper always reprinted the stats from the game, so her scrupulous note-taking was unnecessary, but taught her the love of the game.

2. Next on my list is Stephen Ambrose's Undaunted Courage. This book was a little bit slower to plow through, but well worth it. Ambrose gives a great account of Meriweather Lewis' contributions to the Corps of Discovery's journey through the Louisiana purchase and beyond. After every chapter I would close my eyes and try to envision exactly what Lewis and Clark saw. Endless landscapes mostly untouched, tribes of Native Americans encountering white people for the first time, and animals and trees previously undiscovered.

3. Sorry everyone, but more history is in store. A friend recommended David Oshinsky's Polio: An American Story to me and I loved it. This book gives a detailed description of the rise of the Polio threat in the U.S. and the push to discover a vaccine. I never understood the politics involved in science and medical research, but I have a better idea now. This book was fascinating and even somewhat suspenseful.

4. I did read some fiction this year, and my absolute favorite was Wallace Stegner's Angle of Repose. This is a story of a woman during the late 19th century who has a promising career as an artist on the East coast who marries a mining engineer that moves her out West. The endure hardships as he loses jobs and is forced to relocate to various remote locations (even to the Boise valley, I of course loved that). The story is told by her grandson, an aging historian who envisions her life through the letters she wrote to her best friend she left behind. The story is bittersweet, sometimes it actually hurt to read it, and yet it was so good. I definitely am planning on reading more by Stegner, I loved his prose.

5. Finally, last night I finished Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle; a non-fiction memoir of her families efforts to eat locally for one year. At the beginning her story she and her family move from Arizona to a farm in Virginia. There they decide to eat produce and meat that they either raise themselves or that can be purchased from other local farmers. Kinglsolver also delves into many interesting aspects of the project. I really became interested in the Ark of Taste project she talks about with heirloom species of seeds and animals. I also just liked following her family through the various seasons when different plants begin to ripen as others die. She definitely gained a greater appreciation of these yearly time changes and the greater impact they had on her life. Now I want to make my own cheese, eat more heirloom vegetables, and have Joe bake us some bread (her husband had the task of the daily bread baking, which sounds fair enough to me). Even if I cannot have my own garden yet, or devote my life to entirely local and seasonal food, I felt like there were some things I could take away from this book now.

NUMBERS!

Yes, we have lost our cell phone. I know, big shocker there, huh?! So, we need EVERY single person's phone number, even if you think we already have it. We don't. Promise you. Leave your number in the comments. THanks guys. And thanks to Amber and Randy who lent us their old pink phone since we can't afford a new one. I am going to LOVE seeing Nate using it in public!

New Year: New Books

Alyson and I have finally figured out which books we want to start for the new year. The first one we will be reading is The Zookeeper's Wife by Diane Ackerman. This is a true story about a husband and wife who end up hiding Jews in the Warsaw Zoo from the Nazis during WWII. It sounds pretty fascinating. (Sorry the picture is so small). As with last time, we already selected two other books so that you can reserve them at the library or save on shipping. We have chosen Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, and Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, but more about those after we finish The Zookeeper's Wife!

Wild Swans

Hey Guys-

We should all be reading Wild Swans by now. Sorry it has taken so long for me to get through 3 Cups! If you want to know how we felt about it, read our comments in the previous post. Just let it be said, it should be read by everyone and if you have a heart, it will inspire you to find ways we can all serve and help others, no matter our means or experience. So, I am really excited to read this book because I have heard it is amazing. I am about 50 pages into it so far and am already loving it. The culture and times are fascinating and I love the fact that it is a true story. I can tell I am already going to love these women. So, good luck. Report back soon!

Slacking....

Sorry everyone, I have been slow in getting around to this post. Our next book is going to be Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin. Here is a blurb about it from Amazon: "Some failures lead to phenomenal successes, and this American nurse's unsuccessful attempt to climb K2, the world's second tallest mountain, is one of them. Dangerously ill when he finished his climb in 1993, Mortenson was sheltered for seven weeks by the small Pakistani village of Korphe; in return, he promised to build the impoverished town's first school, a project that grew into the Central Asia Institute, which has since constructed more than 50 schools across rural Pakistan and Afghanistan. Coauthor Relin recounts Mortenson's efforts in fascinating detail, presenting compelling portraits of the village elders, con artists, philanthropists, mujahideen, Taliban officials, ambitious school girls and upright Muslims Mortenson met along the way. As the book moves into the post-9/11 world, Mortenson and Relin argue that the United States must fight Islamic extremism in the region through collaborative efforts to alleviate poverty and improve access to education, especially for girls."