Sunday, Mar. 17, 2019--On the Train from Luxor to Cairo
On the train from Luxor to Cairo I finished reading Fortune Smiles: Stories by Adam Johnson. It is such a good book. Unfortunately for me, even though I still enjoyed it, this was the SECOND time for me to read this book. I didn’t recall having read it when I downloaded it to my Kindle just before heading to Luxor from Beirut. Then, when I started realizing that the stories were familiar to me, I was stuck in the hotel there that had horrible WiFi. I went slowly in rereading it realizing I would not be able to download another book until I got to Cairo. The review I’ve linked above will confirm how good the book is. I gave it 5 stars out of 5.
Friday, March 22, 2019
Tuesday, March 12, 2019
The Round House by Louise Erdrich
Tuesday, Mar. 11, 2019--Beirut, Lebanon
The Round House by Louise Erdrich is a winner of The National Book Award. It is a rare novel set on a Native American Reservation in modern times with the main character being an adolescent boy. But there are many major characters--the boy's parents, his grandfather, his aunts and uncles, his 3 best friends, a priest, etc. A tragic story that is well written, it also has humor that made me laugh aloud. Besides telling the story of these people, the novel emphasizes the injustices that Native Americans face due to various laws and court rulings from the American government. There is never a dull moment in the book. I gave it 4 3/4 stars out of 5--almost perfect!!
The Round House by Louise Erdrich is a winner of The National Book Award. It is a rare novel set on a Native American Reservation in modern times with the main character being an adolescent boy. But there are many major characters--the boy's parents, his grandfather, his aunts and uncles, his 3 best friends, a priest, etc. A tragic story that is well written, it also has humor that made me laugh aloud. Besides telling the story of these people, the novel emphasizes the injustices that Native Americans face due to various laws and court rulings from the American government. There is never a dull moment in the book. I gave it 4 3/4 stars out of 5--almost perfect!!
More Happy Than Not by Adam Silvera
I finished reading More Happy Than Not by Adam Silvera about 5 days ago. It is a coming-of-age story combined with science fiction. The main character is a teenager who is disturbed about a tragedy that has occurred. The book tells the story of his life by jumping back and forth with some surprises in store along the way. At first, I was put off by the sci-fi aspects of the story, but in time I was able to see that they were part of the purpose rather than just something thrown in for amusement. During the first 50 pages or so, I was disappointed in the quality of the writing as well as the story. But the further I went, the better the writing seemed to become and the more I was involved and enjoying it. My eventual rating was 4 stars out of 5 (an increase of 1 to 1 1/2 stars from what I was thinking at the beginning).
Wednesday, September 13, 2017
The Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner
Wednesday, Sept. 13, 2017--On the Bus between Pereira and Cali, Colombia
The book I finished reading on the bus today was The Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner. It took me longer to read it than other books have, because there kept being sections that bored me. Much of it deals with artists in New York--their social lives, their sexual lives, their dinner parties, their conversations, etc. They can expound forever on the most uninteresting topics! There is more to the book than that, and the two story lines at different points in history were interesting. Readers' reviews on Amazon show an almost even distribution of ratings with 16% giving the book only 1 star and 23% giving it 5 stars with the overall average being 3.2 stars. I give it 3 1/2 stars, and that is a bit generous because of the quality of the writing being so good; the story itself wouldn't rate that high.
The book I finished reading on the bus today was The Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner. It took me longer to read it than other books have, because there kept being sections that bored me. Much of it deals with artists in New York--their social lives, their sexual lives, their dinner parties, their conversations, etc. They can expound forever on the most uninteresting topics! There is more to the book than that, and the two story lines at different points in history were interesting. Readers' reviews on Amazon show an almost even distribution of ratings with 16% giving the book only 1 star and 23% giving it 5 stars with the overall average being 3.2 stars. I give it 3 1/2 stars, and that is a bit generous because of the quality of the writing being so good; the story itself wouldn't rate that high.
Wednesday, August 30, 2017
The Best Man by Richard Peck
Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2017--Villa de Leyva, Colombia
I finished reading The Best Man by Richard Peck. It is actually categorized as adolescent literature, but so much young adult fiction is now popular even with adults. I read a good review of it somewhere--probably in TIME or Entertainment Weekly where I read book reviews regularly and added it to my list of books to download from the library. It's been on a wait list for months, but it was available recently. I enjoyed the story which is told from the point of view of a young boy from the time he is 6 until he is about 14. I laughed a number of times. One of the first stories where he is dressed in too-tight blue velvet pants to be the ring-bearer for a wedding, splits the rear open trying to go down the first step and eventually has to go down the steps backwards with his rear showing through the tear is hilarious. Anyway, it is a quick read and seems pretty true to what life is like in elementary and middle schools today. I gave it 4 stars out of 5.
I finished reading The Best Man by Richard Peck. It is actually categorized as adolescent literature, but so much young adult fiction is now popular even with adults. I read a good review of it somewhere--probably in TIME or Entertainment Weekly where I read book reviews regularly and added it to my list of books to download from the library. It's been on a wait list for months, but it was available recently. I enjoyed the story which is told from the point of view of a young boy from the time he is 6 until he is about 14. I laughed a number of times. One of the first stories where he is dressed in too-tight blue velvet pants to be the ring-bearer for a wedding, splits the rear open trying to go down the first step and eventually has to go down the steps backwards with his rear showing through the tear is hilarious. Anyway, it is a quick read and seems pretty true to what life is like in elementary and middle schools today. I gave it 4 stars out of 5.
Sunday, August 27, 2017
The Good Lord Bird by James McBride
Sunday, Aug. 27, 2017--San Gil, Colombia
I finished The Good Lord Bird by James McBride late last week. I really enjoyed the book which won the 2013 National Book Award for Fiction. It is about John Brown of Harper's Ferry fame back in the mid-1800s just before the official beginning of the Civil War. It tells the story of his private efforts to free the slaves in the Missouri/Kansas border area through the observations of a slave he took with him when the father was accidentally killed and concludes with Harper's Ferry 5 years later. Although I enjoyed the story, I gave the book a rating of 4 out of 5 because the writing could have been a bit better.
I finished The Good Lord Bird by James McBride late last week. I really enjoyed the book which won the 2013 National Book Award for Fiction. It is about John Brown of Harper's Ferry fame back in the mid-1800s just before the official beginning of the Civil War. It tells the story of his private efforts to free the slaves in the Missouri/Kansas border area through the observations of a slave he took with him when the father was accidentally killed and concludes with Harper's Ferry 5 years later. Although I enjoyed the story, I gave the book a rating of 4 out of 5 because the writing could have been a bit better.
Saturday, August 19, 2017
An Unnecessary Woman by Rabin Alameddine
I returned home and finished reading my current book while drinking the beer. The book is An Unnecessary Woman by Rabin Alameddine. It was nominated for several major prises and is really an interesting story of a woman in Beirut whose life has had lots of disappointments. Over the years, she has created a life of please in books and music and does not think she needs human companionship. She uses lots of quotes from well-known books by famous philosophers and novelists. (I often get the impression that authors are constantly saving up favorite lines from books they have read and are looking for ways to insert them in their own works.) The quality of the writing as well as the unique, interesting aspects of the character's life caused me to give the book a rating of 4 1/2 out of 5.
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