Becky's Books –

A Tale for the Time Being x2
by Ruth Ozeki  (Canada)
2013 / 422 pages
read by Ruth Ozeki 14h 43m
rating – 8 / fiction

This is a re-read because although I read it for the Booker Group back in June 2014,  the Cafe reading group was discussing it now and I was really NOT remembering very well.  I mainly remembered that I had mixed feelings –  I enjoyed parts of it and not other parts – I was confused for some of the book,  and annoyed by other parts  and then – ta-da – I was devouring other parts of it. My review was kind of wish-washy and I didn’t put in the parts that really turned me off (the teen sex and the  Japanese military stuff).

In the  most recent discussion someone made the comment that  Ozeki tried to cover too many things  and I didn’t remember it that way,  but I really did feel the need to reread it because I didn’t even remember >>>>MORE>>>> 

Savage Harvest: A Tale of Cannibals, Colonialism, and Michael Rockefeller’s Tragic Quest for Primitive Art
by Carl Hoffman
2014 / 323 pages
read by Joe Barrett 9h 18m
rating:  8 / non-fiction – travel/ true crime
(I both read and listened to this one)

I just got this on a whim – it got good reviews,  landed on a couple of “best of” lists,  was made into a documentary, and most important,  it looked good to me personally.   Okay fine – I listened.  The narrator was fine – perhaps a bit over-dramatic at times.  But I wondered about maps and photos but didn’t really look into it.  Then getting ready to write something up,  there it was,  the Kindle edition on super-sale.   🙂

So – now I re-read/listened to  it.  The photos are very good and  >>>MORE>>>> 

The Wars of the Roses: The Fall of the Plantagenets and the Rise of the Tudors
by Dan Jones
2014 / 416 pages
read by John Curless 15h 7m
rating 9 / history – England 15th century
(I both read and listened to this one)

Good book!   I was going to listen but about half way through the first chapter I realized I needed the maps and the genealogies available in the Kindle version – also  I like pictures.  🙂  So I listened and read along on the side.

This book starts where Jones’ The Plantagenets left off,  but there is no real need to read that one first.  This stands on it’s own. In fact, for me, The Wars of the Roses is more interesting than The Plantagenets.  The Wars of the Rosescovers a much shorter period of time so there aren’t so many names.  There is more emphasis on the personalities of some of the personalities – Henry VI,  Edward VI,  Margaret of Anjou,  Richard of York,  Warwick, others – many women are highlighted.  >>>>MORE>>>> 

I only read 9 (yes, nine) books this month which is down considerably from usual,  but I was doing a close reading of 30 pages of Mason & Dixon by Thomas Pynchon as well as losing hours hours to a great computer game, baking, visiting friends, etc.

Anyway!  Of the 9 books,  3 were fiction (including 1 classic and 1 graphic novel),  3 were mysteries and 3 were non-fiction.  The authors of 3 were women and 1 was translated (from Italian).  And! a full 8 (!)  were audio – listens – this is because I was also playing my new game “Avernum 2: Crystal Souls” in the background and listening takes longer than reading text.  >>>>MORE>>>> 

The Master Butcher’s Singing Club
by Louise Erdrich
2003 / 416 pages
read by Louise Erdrich 16h 42m
rating 7,5 (but it might be better than that – )

I’ve enjoyed Erdrich’s books ever since The Beet Queen in 1986.  I read Love Medicine,  her first and most famous book later – like only a few years ago – and I’m a fan – usually.  Not every one of her books lives up to the wonder of Love Medicine.

With Love Medicine and its group of related books, Erdrich created a community in northern North Dakota on and near the Turtle Mountain Reservation in a way similar to Faulkner’s community in Yoknapatawpha,  Mississippi.   The other books *mostly* all have something, in some way, to do with the families and others who live on the Reservation.  The Master Butcher’s Singing Club takes place in a small town just south of the Reservation and there is a character named Cyprian Lazarre there – >>>>MORE>>>>

The Sheltering Sky
by Paul Bowles
1949 / 352 pages
read by Jennifer Connelly 10h 30m
rating:  6 / classic

At first this seemed like a really dumb story wrapped in wonderful silky language. A married American couple and their good friend  travel around North Africa  in the post-WWII days.  They have no comprehension of local language, customs, geography.  They are unaware of how dangerous what they are doing is what with unscrupulous natives, disease and animals.

It might take place in the Sahara but we don’t really learn much about that area of the world until later in the novel. It’s unexpectedly different (to the couple), wild and brutal to women.  It’s really about rich, selfish, ignorant, self-centered, hypocritical Americans going through some kind of timely existential angst  – a dated stereotype at this point (or is it?).    >>>>MORE>>>>

Einstein: His Life and Universe
by Walter Isaacson
2007 / 704 pages
read by Edward Herrmann 21h 30m
rating:  8.75 – nonfiction / biography

Nice biography,  but I’ve come to expect that from Isaacson having read his books on Steve Jobs,  Benjamin Franklin and The Innovators prior to this one – and I can’t pick which one is best.

Einstein has been a household name for several generations now but few people really know much about him other than he was a weird math genius.  Isaacson shows the deeply human side of Einstein,  his ideas,  his loves, his friends, hopes, ideals and fears.  >>>>MORE>>>>

Involuntary Witness
by Gianrico Carofiglio  (Italian)
translated by Patrick Creagh
2002 /290 pages
read by Sean Barrett 7h 30m
rating:  B+ / crime –  legal thriller

This is the first book in the Guido Guerrieri series – it takes place in Italy so the court system is somewhat different, but the plot is based on the same sort of thing as murder mysteries everywhere.  Evidence is evidence,  judges are judges and witnesses are witnesses.

This is NOT a page-turner,  Guido is a very introspective man, we could call him brooding,  and naturally has to have a personal life.   (Bo-ring)  A recently divorced attorney our hero drinks too much and is  interested in the new woman next door (ho-hum).  >>>>MORE>>>>

Crime Novels – a rant – 2/10/14

I’m getting a bit more selective about the crime novels I enjoy and give high ratings to.  I’ve read some really, really good ones and I don’t want to waste my time with books which are really more about some kind of relationship issue than a crime and its solution.  Unfortunately,  that’s not usually the way these days.  My favorites are police procedurals,  legal thrillers, and  traditional mysteries.  I also enjoy good tales of psychological suspense. Not too crazy about chase scene  thrillers where we know “who done it” and only wait around for the cops to get it on with the chase scene.  >>>>MORE>>>>

Faithful Place
by Tara French
2010/ 449 pages
read by Tim Gerard / 16h 17m
rating – C-

Whew!  I’m glad that’s done.  I have one more “Dublin Murder Squad” story and I’m caught up.  There have been 5 – this was #3 and I’m still missing #4, The Likeness.  This books in this series don’t need to be read in sequential order because they’re about various detectives on the Murder Squad – they work quite well as stand-alones.    I’ve enjoyed the others in this series quite a lot,  but this one?  No.

Frank Mackey is a divorced detective with a >>>>MORE>>>>

Baltimore Blues
by Laura Lippman
1997  / 384 pages
read by Deborah Hazlett 9h 55m
rating:  C-

I kept listened for about half of the book then got into another book and came back to this one.  I had to re-start from the beginning and I have to say that  it does start well.

Rock Paxton is engaged with a woman he doesn’t quite trust.  He hires his friend Tess Monahan, an unemployed journalist,  to investigate.  She finds that not only is there evidence that Ava is cheating with her boss,  Michael Abramowitz, but Tess observes Ava shoplifting. >>>>MORE>>>>

Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game
by Michael Lewis
2003 / 288 pages
read by Scott Brick 10h 26m
rating:  8.75 / nonfiction – baseball-tech

What in the world is a nice girl like me doing reading a book about baseball, statistics and draft choices?    Well – um – Lewis is a great writer – usually about the financial sector and I enjoy reading about statistics and tech stuff.  And oh yes, I rather enjoy the game – (Yankees or Twins – go figure).   Lewis’ book is about the Oakland Athletics in the early 2000s and a bit prior.

No,  it’s not a “new” book – it was published in 2003 – but it seems to be holding up nicely.  Michael Lewis is that good.  >>>>MORE>>>>

Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth
by Apostolos Doxiadis and Christos H. Papadirmitrou
2009 / 352 pages
rating:  9.33 / graphic fictional bio and philosophy

This is  a really fun novel if you’re into philosophy, logic and mathematics as taught by Bertrand Russell,  Kurt Gödel,  Leonard Wittgenstein and others of those stripes and eras.

Strangely enough the graphic novel suits this story – it really works to keep the pace going and the interest up.  The structure of the narrative also adds to the pacing with a first frame which includes the authors and artists devising the inner narratives  >>>>MORE>>>> 

The Plantagenets: The Warrior Kings and Queens Who Made England
by Dan Jones
2012 / 580 pages
read by Clive Chafer/ 20h 49m
rating: 9 – history of England

“The prince was drunk.”   So begins Jones fast-paced, bloody  and insightful narrative of The Plantagenets ruled long and hard – joining and separating England and big chunks of France (Aquitaine, Maine, Normandy, Potoirs and Anjou) in addition to Scotland, Ireland and Wales. They also fought fiercely  amongst themselves and against others.  Some of the kings tried to model themselves and their reigns after the mythical King Arthur while others just went for the blood.  >>>>MORE>>>>

These are the books I read in January, 2015.  There are 13 books   total – this is down a bit because of a couple books I didn’t finish.  (This boils down to  3680 pages in books I finished – fwiw.)   There are 5 general fictions,  7 crime,  1 nonfiction and zero classics (whaaa).   BUT,  there are  (ta-da!) 7 by women authors!   (I don’t aim for this – I just like to keep a tally while reading what I want.)  >>>>MORE>>>> 

how to be both
by Ali Smith
2014/ 384 pages
rating – 9 / general fiction

The introductory material says this book (even e-book) can be read in two ways – the EYES section first and then the CAMERA section or vice versa.  Just click the “eyes” graphic or the “camera” graphic.  Okay – I clicked “EYES.”

In spite of the very contemporary cover art EYES opens in Renaissance Italy with an “unknown painter of the school of whatever you like…”  speaking in 1st person which is written out to look like a poem,  and I think describes his being born.

“Just saying.”   Kindle loc. 150  –   I read that and laugh out loud >>>>MORE>>>>

The Girl on the Train
by Paula Hawkins
2015 / 326  pages
Read by  Clare Corbett, Louise Brealey, India Fisher / 10h 59m
Rating:  A / crime (thriller)

Something happened to Rachel but she can’t remember what it was – she was drunk as usual.  And the woman she knew as Jess (Rachel made up that name for her)  is missing – somewhere – and Rachel saw something … while she was – oh no – bothering Tom, her ex-husand,  who lives very near Jess and her husband “Jason,”  with Tom’s new wife,  Anne.  Rachel used to live in Tom’s house – but now she lives with a roommate and is about to get kicked out of there for drinking in the same way she was fired from her job for drinking – really,  it’s about what she does while drunk that gets her in trouble.  But when the story opens Rachel takes the train in to London every day,  pretending to have a job there,  so the roommate won’t get suspicious,  but en route one day she saw something –  >>>>MORE>>>>