Monthly Archives: August 2014

Burial Rites by Hannah Kent 2014/ 338 pages rating 7 / hist. fict – (Iceland) I really enjoy books set in Greenland or Iceland, especially historical fiction, so I thought this book might be interesting. Too bad. The books by … Continue reading →

I finished sorting out the pages from the posts and putting them into the right months in the menu.  That’s 3 month’s worth of posts sent from my iPad while I was visiting in North Dakota.  The iPad is wonderful … Continue reading →

The Unicornby Iris Murdoch1963 /319 pagesrating 7 / 20th cent. fiction – UK(I read this back in June but it slipped out of the posts.)  Once upon a time, somewhere west of Ireland there lived a beautiful young woman who … Continue reading →

Perfectby Rachel Joyce2014/ 400 pagesrating 6/10 – contemp fict UKread by Paul Rhys – 11h 18m Not impressive although I must say I was expecting a thriller or a mystery type book and it’s not that.   Also,  I listened … Continue reading →

All Our Names by Dinaw Mengestu 2013/ 272 pages rating 8/ contemp lit – Africa Two young men in Uganda pretend to be university students while fomenting rebellion against the dictatorship. Both are apparently named Isaac, at least known by … Continue reading →

The Golden Bowl by Henry James 1904/ 386 pages rating 8 – classic What if a widowed father were so rich he could buy his beloved only daughter a financially embarrassed Italian Prince to marry? And what if beloved daughter’s best … Continue reading →

Empty Mansions: The Mysterious Life Huguette Clark and the Spending of a Great American Fortune by Bill Dedman and Paul Clark Newell 2013 / 496 pages rating 8.5 Based on the NBC news article of the same name, this is … Continue reading →

White Dog Fell From the Sky by Eleanor Morse 2013 / 352 pages rating 8 / contemp Africa-US Although this book is laden with flaws, by the time it ended I really rather liked it. I think it must have … Continue reading →

Secrets of Eden by Chris Bohjalian 2013/ 362 pages rating 4 / contemp fiction – crime Read for a group. Not impressed although the plot line was kind of interesting for a who-done-it. There was an awful lot of padding … Continue reading →

Amsterdam: A History of the World’s Most Liberal City by Russell Shorto  2013 / 315 pagesrating – 8.5 / history-travel Shorto’s books are geared toward the layman reader of history and they are packed with information while written in an … Continue reading →

Harvest by Jim Croce 2013/ 245 pages rating 8 / contemp fiction Is Croce a poet? This novel reads like poetry in terms of the sometimes archaic vocabulary and the heavy rhythm. This was to the point I was looking … Continue reading →

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood 1985 / 310 pages Rating- 7 / speculative fiction I finally read this. I enjoy Atwood and have read maybe a half-dozen of her books but I just never got around to this one … Continue reading →

In the Light of What We Know by Zia Haider Rahman 2014/ 499 pages rating 9 / contemp lit In the Light of What We Know” is a book about ideas (think Gödel and the title), mathematics, philosophy, perception, psychological … Continue reading →

The Ghost Map The Story of London’s Most Terrifying Epidemic … and How It Changed Science, Cities and the Modern World by Steven Johnson 2013 / 307 pages rating – 8.5 London’s Broad Street epidemic of cholera in September of … Continue reading →

Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline 2013/ 273 pages rating 7/ YA? –  hist. fict. I’d say this book is mostly for folks ages 16 and older because it’s not really action based (for younger people)  and it weaves a … Continue reading →

Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt by Michael Lewis 2013 / 274 pages Rating 8.5 / nonfiction- business This is a very informative book on a very confusing subject and although I think Lewis does his best, the complexities of … Continue reading →