The Kitchen Daughter
by Jael McHenry
2011 / Kindle / 306 pages
Rating – 8 (very good / fun)
Well I’m not sure what I was expecting but this wasn’t it. I only read this because a reading group was reading it and I didn’t even think I’d bother. But then I thought, Oh well, so download the sample and see how it goes… Wow – I was hooked and before I’d >>>>MORE>>>>
Hanging By a Thread
by Monica Ferris (6th in the Needlecraft series)
2003 / 272 pages
read by Susan Boyce / 6h 19m
A- (if you like cozies)
Oddly enough this came up for me at Halloween and there is a theme of ghosts in it. Foster Johns, a local tradesman, was all but convicted of a double murder about 5 years ago and his life has been horrendous ever since. He pleads his case to >>>>MORE>>>>
Last Night in Montreal
by Emily St. John Mandel
2009 / 256 pgs
read by Alyssa Bresnahan ~ 8h 19m
rating – 7.5 (very high for crime novels)
A divorcing father has kidnapped 7-year old daughter Lilia as he leaves mom and the two drive across the country for several years avoiding detection as she is a highly publicized “missing child.” As an adult >>>>MORE>>>>
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
by Washington Irving
1820 – short story
I know I read this in high school but I think I thought it was pretty stupid. This time I really enjoyed it but it was from more of an adult point of view, for themes other than “scary.”
This time I especially enjoyed Irving’s writing, the way that early America is described – this is the land of the Yankees which Europeans were so contemptuous of. This was our humor, our landscape, our romance, our class structure. I also enjoyed the characters – I really didn’t remember the ending. The structure was weird. >>> MORE >>>> (annotations)
New Finnish Grammar
by Diego Marani
2000/2011 (Eng.) – 196 pgs
Rating – 9
Wow! This book is about memory and identity and language all mixed together. During WWII a man is found near the exploded wreck of a Finnish gunboat. He has total amnesia. The doctor who treats him assumes for several reasons that he is Finnish and sends him to a friend in Finland hoping to retrieve his memory. But he remains rootless, homeless, language-less, and lonely. >>>>MORE>>>> >>>>BACKGROUND>>>>
The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin
by H.W. Brands
2000 / 784 pages
Read by Nelson Runger 36h 38m
Rating: 8.5
Whew – I finished! This is a really long book but listening to Nelson Runger read it made it worth it. Still, it took me several months.
I’d been meaning to read The First American for >>>MORE>>>>
The Nose
by Nikolai Gogol
1836 / short story
Rating – 9
This is a VERY peculiar short story about a barber who finds a nose in his bread and the man who has lost his nose. The nose gets some action, too – actually, it becomes a character. I think nobody knows >>>MORE>>>
A Murderous Yarn
by Monica Ferris
2002 / 256 pages
Read by Susan Boyce – 6h 52m
Rating – B
This is number 5 in the Needlecraft series – I do NOT know why I like them – they’re kind of dumb but .. .they’re books to relax with. I have 9 to go – so far – Ferris is still writing as far as I know.
In this little episode Betsy Davenport (the owner of Crewel World in a small town in Minnesota) is dragged into the case of a dead steam engine car driver. There’s probably more about steam engines than I wanted to know but it works.
In the Time of the Butterflies
by Julia Alvarez
1994 / 352 pages
Rating: 6
I’ve been wanting to read this for some time – probably ever since I read The Feast of the Goat by Mario Vargas Llosa, a Peruvian writer. I was majorly disappointed. >>>>MORE>>>>
Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore
by Robin Sloan
2012/ 304 pages
read by Ari Fliakos / 7h 41m
Rating 4
This book started out on such a great premise – a premise worthy of Umberto Eco or Neal Stephenson or even Gibson or William Gibson or some other good conspiracy author. But Sloan is no Eco or even a Gibson >>> MORE>>>>
Galore
by Michael Crummey
2009 / Kindle / 338 pages
Raing – 9
Wow – I just finished and I’m flabbergasted – at a loss for words. No, it’s not a 10, not even a 9.5 like Bring Up the Bodies. But it’s sooo good.
The story takes place from about the 1790s to 1916 or so, six generations of Devine and Seller family histories, almost entirely in a small community on the eastern shore of Newfoundland >>>> MORE>>>>
A Casual Vacancy
by J.K. Rowling
2012 / 512 pages
read by Tom Hollander 17h. 55m.
rating – 8
Don’t let the review by Michiko Kakutani fool you – there are plenty of great reviews of this book out there. It took me awhile to warm to it but at some point the inter-relationships wangled my attention. The book is very dark >>> MORE >>>>
Travels With Charley: In Search of America
by John Steinbeck
1962 / 283 pages – re-read
Rating 8.5
I am sooo glad I reread this book. I wasn’t all in love with it the first time round (a 7!) but this time I had new insight into Steinbeck and his most famous work of non-fiction. I’d heard that the trip Steinbeck and his dog took was largely fabricated and as a result was kind of looking for clues about that – I tended to agree that the actual trip was bogus. But on this reading I came to a surprising conclusion – although Travels With Charley is not a travelogue as I know travelogues, it’s a marvelous memoir of a changing America by one of its pre-eminent writers. >>>> MORE >>>>
Half-Blood Blues
by Esi Edugyan
2012 / 343 pages
Rating – 8.5
This should be interesting – it’s kind of an historical novel – set in Paris – 1940, Berlin – 1992, Berlin – 1939, Paris – 1939, and Poland – 1992. And the main characters are all of various ethnicities and play in a very popular jazz band of the times – of the times … think about that. >>>>MORE>>>>
The Cossacks
by Leo Tolstoy
1863 / 104 pages
rating 9
I’ve wanted to read this book for ever so long and finally I get the chance! I loved War and Peace and very much enjoyed Anna Karenina – I’ve read a few other shorter works as well but never The Cossacks. >>>>MORE >>>>
Scumbler
by William Wharton
1985/288 pages
rating – 5
Stupid, stupid, stupid. I was either bored or annoyed by so much of this book. Imo, the 1st person is a selfish and unreliable person (by his own accord) and his life reflects this. >>> MORE >>>
The Ruby In Her Navel
by Barry Unsworth
2006 / 399 pages
rating 9.5
In the 12th century Sicily was Christianized by the Norman King Roger II. He tried to get the Normans, Byzantines, Greeks, Muslims, and Jews to live together in relative harmony but … >>> MORE >>>>
Becky's Books - 