Sunday, Dec. 20, 2015--San Antonio
I just finished reading The All-Girl Filling Station's Last Reunion by Fannie Flagg. It's the first book I've read by her although I have known of her through TV and radio appearances for decades and have seen the film version of her book Fried Green Tomatoes. The book I read had scattered moments of great humor that made me laugh aloud, but the book as a whole is not a humorous novel. It's a very interesting tale about what makes a family and includes a wonderful side story related to flying women both as barnstormers and as WASPs during WWII. I gave the book 3 stars out of 4.
Sunday, December 20, 2015
Tuesday, December 15, 2015
The Darling Dahlias and the Naked Ladies
Tuesday, Dec. 12, 2015--San Antonio, TX
I finished reading The Darling Dahlias and the Naked Ladies by Susan Wittig Albert today. Because I have been busy with the holidays, I kept leaving this book and coming back to it. Although the story is a bit intriguing, it so poorly written that it seems a lot like reading a town gossip column in a small-town community newspaper. Furthermore, there is a major plot error in which THE town gossip learns about something, starts spreading the information, and then is never mentioned again even when the conclusion at the end of the book is that everything has been kept a secret in the town. I gave the book 2 stars out of 4.
I finished reading The Darling Dahlias and the Naked Ladies by Susan Wittig Albert today. Because I have been busy with the holidays, I kept leaving this book and coming back to it. Although the story is a bit intriguing, it so poorly written that it seems a lot like reading a town gossip column in a small-town community newspaper. Furthermore, there is a major plot error in which THE town gossip learns about something, starts spreading the information, and then is never mentioned again even when the conclusion at the end of the book is that everything has been kept a secret in the town. I gave the book 2 stars out of 4.
Sunday, November 1, 2015
The Echo Maker
Saturday, Oct. 31, 2015--San Antonio
I finished reading The Echo Maker by Richard Powers this evening. It won the National Book Award several years ago. The book is very well written and has a quite complex structure. It starts with a man who is involved in a car crash in Nebraska and suffers neurological damage that leaves him unable to recognize the most loved individuals in his life--his sister and his dog. He has delusions that they have been replaced by almost-perfect duplicates in some bizarre scheme. Other aspects of the novel include a neurologist famous for his popular books that describe symptoms of various patients, a developer who wants to build on land that an environmentalist and his group is trying to protect for the birds who migrate through there regularly, a nurse's aide at the hospital who everyone recognizes as working "below what ought to be her station in life." I thoroughly enjoyed the narrative, but I got quite bored at times with the details of the previous case studies being discussed by the neurologist. So my summary is that it soars and it bores, but it soars more than it bores. I gave it 3 stars out of 4.
I finished reading The Echo Maker by Richard Powers this evening. It won the National Book Award several years ago. The book is very well written and has a quite complex structure. It starts with a man who is involved in a car crash in Nebraska and suffers neurological damage that leaves him unable to recognize the most loved individuals in his life--his sister and his dog. He has delusions that they have been replaced by almost-perfect duplicates in some bizarre scheme. Other aspects of the novel include a neurologist famous for his popular books that describe symptoms of various patients, a developer who wants to build on land that an environmentalist and his group is trying to protect for the birds who migrate through there regularly, a nurse's aide at the hospital who everyone recognizes as working "below what ought to be her station in life." I thoroughly enjoyed the narrative, but I got quite bored at times with the details of the previous case studies being discussed by the neurologist. So my summary is that it soars and it bores, but it soars more than it bores. I gave it 3 stars out of 4.
Friday, October 9, 2015
Slow Man by J.M. Coetzee
Thursday, Oct. 8, 2015--San Antonio
I finished reading Slow Man by J. M. Coetzee. I've read a couple of other books by the same author and enjoyed them tremendously--Disgrace and The Life & Times of Michael K. This one was well written, but I just couldn't understand what was happening in terms of the Elizabeth Costello character. Maybe if I had read another of his novels which has her name as the title, I would have comprehended. I gave the book 2 1/2 stars out of 4.
I finished reading Slow Man by J. M. Coetzee. I've read a couple of other books by the same author and enjoyed them tremendously--Disgrace and The Life & Times of Michael K. This one was well written, but I just couldn't understand what was happening in terms of the Elizabeth Costello character. Maybe if I had read another of his novels which has her name as the title, I would have comprehended. I gave the book 2 1/2 stars out of 4.
Sunday, September 20, 2015
Mister Pip
Sunday, Sept. 20, 2015--San Antonio, TX
I just finished reading Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones. It is a delightful, charming story made even better because of the number of people who have read Great Expectations as a student in school. I gave the book 4 stars out of 4!
I just finished reading Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones. It is a delightful, charming story made even better because of the number of people who have read Great Expectations as a student in school. I gave the book 4 stars out of 4!
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