en-US Mon, 20 Nov 2023 01:29:56 -0800 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 107426 250 Jill Ker Conway 0679744614 Heather 0 to-read 3.88 1994
author: Jill Ker Conway
name: Heather
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1994
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/11/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 8796854
Even before the first rumblings of secession shook the halls of Congress, British involvement in the coming schism was inevitable. Britain was dependent on the South for cotton, and in turn the Confederacy relied almost exclusively on Britain for guns, bullets, and ships. The Union sought to block any diplomacy between the two and consistently teetered on the brink of war with Britain. For four years the complex web of relationships between the countries led to defeats and victories both minute and history-making. In A World on Fire , Amanda Foreman examines the fraught relations from multiple angles while she introduces characters both humble and grand, bringing them to vivid life over the course of her sweeping and brilliant narrative.

Between 1861 and 1865, thousands of British citizens volunteered for service on both sides of the Civil War. From the first cannon blasts on Fort Sumter to Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, they served as officers and infantrymen, sailors and nurses, blockade runners and spies. Through personal letters, diaries, and journals, Foreman has woven together their experiences to form a panoramic yet intimate view of the war on the front lines, in the prison camps, and in the great cities of both the Union and the Confederacy. Through the eyes of these brave volunteers we see the details of the struggle for life and the great and powerful forces that threatened to demolish a nation.

In the drawing rooms of London and the offices of Washington, on muddy fields and aboard packed ships, Foreman reveals the decisions made, the beliefs held and contested, and the personal triumphs and sacrifices that ultimately led to the reunification of America. A World on Fire is a complex and groundbreaking work that will surely cement Amanda Foreman’s position as one of the most influential historians of our time.]]> 988 Amanda Foreman 037550494X Heather 4 3.98 2010
author: Amanda Foreman
name: Heather
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2010
rating: 4
read at: 2020/04/10
date added: 2020/04/10
shelves:
review:

]]> 12262741 An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here

At twenty-two, Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost everything. In the wake of her mother’s death, her family scattered and her own marriage was soon destroyed. Four years later, with nothing more to lose, she made the most impulsive decision of her life. With no experience or training, driven only by blind will, she would hike more than a thousand miles of the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to Washington State � and she would do it alone.

Told with suspense and style, sparkling with warmth and humor, Wild powerfully captures the terrors and pleasures of one young woman forging ahead against all odds on a journey that maddened, strengthened, and ultimately healed her.]]> 336 Cheryl Strayed 0307592731 Heather 3 4.06 2012
author: Cheryl Strayed
name: Heather
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2012
rating: 3
read at: 2020/04/10
date added: 2020/04/10
shelves:
review:

]]> 13496
Sweeping from a harsh land of cold to a summertime kingdom of epicurean plenty, A Game of Thrones tells a tale of lords and ladies, soldiers and sorcerers, assassins and bastards, who come together in a time of grim omens. Here an enigmatic band of warriors bear swords of no human metal; a tribe of fierce wildlings carry men off into madness; a cruel young dragon prince barters his sister to win back his throne; a child is lost in the twilight between life and death; and a determined woman undertakes a treacherous journey to protect all she holds dear. Amid plots and counter-plots, tragedy and betrayal, victory and terror, allies and enemies, the fate of the Starks hangs perilously in the balance, as each side endeavors to win that deadliest of conflicts: the game of thrones.]]> 835 George R.R. Martin 0553588486 Heather 5 4.44 1996
author: George R.R. Martin
name: Heather
average rating: 4.44
book published: 1996
rating: 5
read at: 2020/04/10
date added: 2020/04/10
shelves:
review:

]]> 46180988
Yellow Bird traces Lissa's steps as she obsessively hunts for clues to Clarke's disappearance. She navigates two worlds--that of her own tribe, changed by its newfound wealth, and that of the non-Native oilmen, down on their luck, who have come to find work on the heels of the economic recession. Her pursuit of Clarke is also a pursuit of redemption, as Lissa atones for her own crimes and reckons with generations of trauma.]]> 379 Sierra Crane Murdoch 0399589155 Heather 0 currently-reading 3.74 2020
author: Sierra Crane Murdoch
name: Heather
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/04/10
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> 34563821
Set on the remote Siberian peninsula of Kamchatka, Disappearing Earth draws us into the world of an astonishing cast of characters, all connected by an unfathomable crime. We are transported to vistas of rugged beauty � densely wooded forests, open expanses of tundra, soaring volcanoes and the glassy seas that border Japan and Alaska � and into a region as complex as it is alluring, where social and ethnic tensions have long simmered, and where outsiders are often the first to be accused.

In a story as propulsive as it is emotionally engaging, and through a young writer's virtuosic feat of empathy and imagination, this powerful novel provides a new understanding of the intricate bonds of family and community, in a Russia unlike any we have seen before.

Beautifully written, thought-provoking, intense and cleverly wrought, this is the most extraordinary first novel from a mesmerising new talent.]]> 312 Julia Phillips Heather 5 3.82 2019
author: Julia Phillips
name: Heather
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2020/04/10
shelves:
review:
At turns a mystery and an exploration of the human condition, felt more like a collection of interconnected short stories that meandered like a trail of bread crumbs toward its conclusion. One of the most compelling novels I’ve read in years, and the heart breaking insights into loss, hope, betrayal, and - at its most clear eyed - into the visible and invisible violence that is occurring against women, especially native women. Just a masterful work.
]]> 6320534
When food, electricity and water run short, the normal rules of society are changed. A new and more sinister social order develops, Dale Barbara, a young Iraq veteran, teams up with a handful of intrepid citizens to fight against the corruption that is sweeping through the town and to try to discover the source of the Dome before it is too late...]]> 1074 Stephen King 1439148503 Heather 3 3.92 2009
author: Stephen King
name: Heather
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2009
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2020/04/10
shelves:
review:

]]> 144108 244 Frank A. Worsley 0723001626 Heather 3 non-fiction, peace-corps 4.10 1933
author: Frank A. Worsley
name: Heather
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1933
rating: 3
read at: 2009/07/25
date added: 2020/04/05
shelves: non-fiction, peace-corps
review:

]]> 1 652 J.K. Rowling Heather 5 peace-corps, fiction hands down, my fave HP book. 4.57 2005
author: J.K. Rowling
name: Heather
average rating: 4.57
book published: 2005
rating: 5
read at: 2009/01/07
date added: 2014/04/29
shelves: peace-corps, fiction
review:
hands down, my fave HP book.
]]> 49436 349 Greg Mortenson 0143038257 Heather 1 non-fiction
I hope not. Jeez, where do I start. The writing? It's terrible. I am now going to randomly pick a page, any page, and find a ridiculous, klunky morsel for you:

"Suleman sat like a smiling Buddha next to Mortensen, his arms crossed over the beginning of a pot belly."

or,

"the inspiring view that greets these students from every classroom - the roof of the world, represented by Masherbrum's soaring summit ridge-has already helped convince many of Hushe's children to aim high."

or, (my personal favorite)

"And by the time the rising sun iced the hanging glaciers of Masherbrum pale pink, like a gargantuan pastry dangling above them at breakfast time, Mortenson had agreed to shift the funds his board had approved for the doomed Khane school upside to this village whose headman had traveled so far downriver to educate himself."

I could go on, but I'll spare you. If you'd like 350+ pages of the above prose, by all means read this book.

What else besides the writing? The methods - I was always told that non-fiction writing is a pretty specific genre, and that if you don't have a quotation written down from a source, or have it recorded somehow, you don't use quotations at all. The whole time I'm reading, I keep thinking, "there's no way Mortensen remembers every exact conversation he had 15 years ago!" (and that's an exact quote from my brain, by the way).

Plus, there are historical inaccuracies all over the place that made me question the validity of the hyperbolized text and the way in which the "co-author" (For Mortensen is the other) idolizes his subject beyond, well, objectivity. For example, there's an entire passage about the year 2000, when Mortensen is struggling with his lack of management skills, his frustration with the lack of sustainability of his foundation's finances, and fulfilling his duties to his family. He goes on a trip to SE Asia to observe other development projects, and ends up in Calcutta, and wouldn't you know it, Mother Teresa just died and he buys himself a big ole bouquet of flowers to honor her, and goes to pay his respects to her shrouded body. It's a quite moving passage (naturally it's littered with horrific metaphor, but I'll leave that alone for now), until it occurred to me that Mother Teresa died in 1997. Yeah, right after Princess Diana. I mean, I know that it's OK to take a little poetic license with this stuff, but the writer has Mortensen strutting his stuff triumphantly all over the Pakistani mountain ridges in 1997...guess it didn't fit in with the narrative arc that Mother Teresa had the indecency to die 3 years too early for Mortensen to mourn her loss at the same time he's reached his own personal crisis of faith.

Wow this sounds bitter. I guess my ultimate point is this: I believe in community-driven development. I believe that education and other related iniatives create stronger societies and really work to promote peace and alleviate violence and terror. But for such an important topic, I really feel that Mortensen deserved a writer who could be more objective and yes, gasp!, critical at times. I am left disbelieving in this foundation, and I am skeptical of its management and practices. I am wary of those who claim to forge the solutions for all in one single bound. I hope that I read another account of Mortensen that changes my mind. This book did little for me but make me despair for the unmentioned NGOs and others who are working (likely) toward the same goal in the same region, without the benefit of collaboration with this Mortensen's access to resources.

Oh yeah, and I resent the book jacket referring to Mortensen as a "real-life Indiana Jones." sheesh.]]> 3.66 2006
author: Greg Mortenson
name: Heather
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2006
rating: 1
read at: 2008/06/27
date added: 2014/01/11
shelves: non-fiction
review:
This book is driving me fricking nuts. I'm struggling to finish it, and can I help it if I feel like a bad person for HATING this book even though I totally support its main purpose and the mission of the subject??

I hope not. Jeez, where do I start. The writing? It's terrible. I am now going to randomly pick a page, any page, and find a ridiculous, klunky morsel for you:

"Suleman sat like a smiling Buddha next to Mortensen, his arms crossed over the beginning of a pot belly."

or,

"the inspiring view that greets these students from every classroom - the roof of the world, represented by Masherbrum's soaring summit ridge-has already helped convince many of Hushe's children to aim high."

or, (my personal favorite)

"And by the time the rising sun iced the hanging glaciers of Masherbrum pale pink, like a gargantuan pastry dangling above them at breakfast time, Mortenson had agreed to shift the funds his board had approved for the doomed Khane school upside to this village whose headman had traveled so far downriver to educate himself."

I could go on, but I'll spare you. If you'd like 350+ pages of the above prose, by all means read this book.

What else besides the writing? The methods - I was always told that non-fiction writing is a pretty specific genre, and that if you don't have a quotation written down from a source, or have it recorded somehow, you don't use quotations at all. The whole time I'm reading, I keep thinking, "there's no way Mortensen remembers every exact conversation he had 15 years ago!" (and that's an exact quote from my brain, by the way).

Plus, there are historical inaccuracies all over the place that made me question the validity of the hyperbolized text and the way in which the "co-author" (For Mortensen is the other) idolizes his subject beyond, well, objectivity. For example, there's an entire passage about the year 2000, when Mortensen is struggling with his lack of management skills, his frustration with the lack of sustainability of his foundation's finances, and fulfilling his duties to his family. He goes on a trip to SE Asia to observe other development projects, and ends up in Calcutta, and wouldn't you know it, Mother Teresa just died and he buys himself a big ole bouquet of flowers to honor her, and goes to pay his respects to her shrouded body. It's a quite moving passage (naturally it's littered with horrific metaphor, but I'll leave that alone for now), until it occurred to me that Mother Teresa died in 1997. Yeah, right after Princess Diana. I mean, I know that it's OK to take a little poetic license with this stuff, but the writer has Mortensen strutting his stuff triumphantly all over the Pakistani mountain ridges in 1997...guess it didn't fit in with the narrative arc that Mother Teresa had the indecency to die 3 years too early for Mortensen to mourn her loss at the same time he's reached his own personal crisis of faith.

Wow this sounds bitter. I guess my ultimate point is this: I believe in community-driven development. I believe that education and other related iniatives create stronger societies and really work to promote peace and alleviate violence and terror. But for such an important topic, I really feel that Mortensen deserved a writer who could be more objective and yes, gasp!, critical at times. I am left disbelieving in this foundation, and I am skeptical of its management and practices. I am wary of those who claim to forge the solutions for all in one single bound. I hope that I read another account of Mortensen that changes my mind. This book did little for me but make me despair for the unmentioned NGOs and others who are working (likely) toward the same goal in the same region, without the benefit of collaboration with this Mortensen's access to resources.

Oh yeah, and I resent the book jacket referring to Mortensen as a "real-life Indiana Jones." sheesh.
]]> 12341557
Roland Deschain and his ka-tet�Jake, Susannah, Eddie, and Oy, the billy-bumbler—encounter a ferocious storm just after crossing the River Whye on their way to the Outer Baronies. As they shelter from the howling gale, Roland tells his friends not just one strange story but two . . . and in so doing, casts new light on his own troubled past.

In his early days as a gunslinger, in the guilt-ridden year following his mother’s death, Roland is sent by his father to investigate evidence of a murderous shape-shifter, a “skin-man� preying upon the population around Debaria. Roland takes charge of Bill Streeter, the brave but terrified boy who is the sole surviving witness to the beast’s most recent slaughter. Only a teenager himself, Roland calms the boy and prepares him for the following day’s trials by reciting a story from the Magic Tales of the Eld that his mother often read to him at bedtime. “A person’s never too old for stories,� Roland says to Bill. “Man and boy, girl and woman, never too old. We live for them.� And indeed, the tale that Roland unfolds, the legend of Tim Stoutheart, is a timeless treasure for all ages, a story that lives for us.

King began the Dark Tower series in 1974; it gained momentum in the 1980s; and he brought it to a thrilling conclusion when the last three novels were published in 2003 and 2004. The Wind Through the Keyhole is sure to fascinate avid fans of the Dark Tower epic. But this novel also stands on its own for all readers, an enchanting and haunting journey to Roland’s world and testimony to the power of Stephen King’s storytelling magic.

~from first edition jacket]]> 322 Stephen King Heather 3 4.12 2012
author: Stephen King
name: Heather
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2012
rating: 3
read at: 2012/05/30
date added: 2012/07/08
shelves:
review:
really 3.5 stars. Great to read about the ka-tet again, but also didn't add much to the entire story. But, a wonderful story nonetheless. Read in one sitting when I had the time and didn't even notice I barely moved for a few hours.
]]> 10644930
In 2011, Jake Epping, an English teacher from Lisbon Falls, Maine, sets out on an insane � and insanely possible � mission to prevent the Kennedy assassination.

Leaving behind a world of computers and mobile phones, he goes back to a time of big American cars and diners, of Lindy Hopping, the sound of Elvis, and the taste of root beer.

In this haunting world, Jake falls in love with Sadie, a beautiful high school librarian. And, as the ominous date of 11/22/63 approaches, he encounters a troubled loner named Lee Harvey Oswald...]]> 849 Stephen King 1451627289 Heather 4 4.33 2011
author: Stephen King
name: Heather
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2012/07/08
shelves:
review:

]]> 9418327
She has seen both these dreams come true.

At last, Tina Fey's story can be told. From her youthful days as a vicious nerd to her tour of duty on Saturday Night Live; from her passionately halfhearted pursuit of physical beauty to her life as a mother eating things off the floor; from her one-sided college romance to her nearly fatal honeymoon—from the beginning of this paragraph to this final sentence.

Tina Fey reveals all, and proves what we've all suspected: you're no one until someone calls you bossy.]]> 283 Tina Fey Heather 3
Ms. Fey is witty, intelligent, wise, and generally a good writer. Nora Ephron she is not. But, her ruminations on life and work and the ever-elusive balance of the two was overall enjoyable if a bit flat. ]]> 3.97 2011
author: Tina Fey
name: Heather
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2011
rating: 3
read at: 2012/06/24
date added: 2012/07/08
shelves:
review:
Tina Fey is awesome. This book both underscored this fact and made me wonder why on earth she was trying so hard to come off as witty, intelligent, normal AND abnormal (a.k.a., normal), and wise. The anecdotes are organized in a strange way - somewhat chronological but also interspersed with odd stories that fall flat as she uses too many self-deprecating jokes that are meant to break up what could be serious stories. That kind of humor works for her while performing, I think (and obviously is a trademark of Liz Lemon, her shadow personality)...but in telling her own story, I felt like she actually didn't need to be so funny. I suppose that's an odd reaction to have while reading the memoir of a comedienne. I ended up appreciating more than any other her essay on the ways that strangers and other people were constantly giving her their opinion on whether or not she should have a second child - this was her most honest and, I thought, most serious (and therefore, actually funny because it wasn't trying too hard to be) story. Even this, though, disappointed a bit because it turned out that this (the last of the book) was the one part of the book I'd already read (she published it in the New Yorker last year).

Ms. Fey is witty, intelligent, wise, and generally a good writer. Nora Ephron she is not. But, her ruminations on life and work and the ever-elusive balance of the two was overall enjoyable if a bit flat.
]]> 5091 The Dark Tower saga is perhaps the most anticipated book in the author's long career. King began this epic tale about the last gunslinger in the world more than 20 years ago; now he draws its suspenseful story to a close, snapping together the last pieces of his action puzzle and drawing Roland Deschain ever closer to his ultimate goal.

Alternate cover edition for ISBN-10: 1416524525; ISBN-13: 9781416524526]]> 1050 Stephen King Heather 4 4.27 2004
author: Stephen King
name: Heather
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2004
rating: 4
read at: 2011/11/30
date added: 2011/11/30
shelves:
review:

]]> 5093 544 Stephen King 1416521496 Heather 4 3.98 2004
author: Stephen King
name: Heather
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2004
rating: 4
read at: 2011/11/24
date added: 2011/11/24
shelves:
review:

]]> 4978 960 Stephen King 141651693X Heather 4 4.19 2003
author: Stephen King
name: Heather
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2003
rating: 4
read at: 2011/11/15
date added: 2011/11/15
shelves:
review:
i would be shocked (shocked!) if the producers/writers of LOST were not extraordinarily familiar with this novel. Also, makes most of LOST seem even sillier than it was. this is how it's done.
]]> 5096 845 Stephen King 0340829788 Heather 5 4.26 1997
author: Stephen King
name: Heather
average rating: 4.26
book published: 1997
rating: 5
read at: 2011/11/09
date added: 2011/11/09
shelves:
review:

]]> 34084 422 Stephen King 0670032565 Heather 5 4.24 1991
author: Stephen King
name: Heather
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1991
rating: 5
read at: 2011/10/30
date added: 2011/11/05
shelves:
review:

]]> 43615
He is a haunting figure, a loner on a spellbinding journey into good and evil. In his desolate world, which frighteningly mirrors our own, Roland pursues The Man in Black, encounters an alluring woman named Alice, and begins a friendship with the Kid from Earth called Jake. Both grippingly realistic and eerily dreamlike, The Gunslinger leaves readers eagerly awaiting the next chapter.]]> 231 Stephen King 1501143514 Heather 4 3.95 1982
author: Stephen King
name: Heather
average rating: 3.95
book published: 1982
rating: 4
read at: 2011/09/01
date added: 2011/10/17
shelves:
review:

]]> 5094
Here he links forces with the defiant young Eddie Dean and the beautiful, brilliant, and brave Odetta Holmes, in a savage struggle against underworld evil and otherworldly enemies.

Once again, Stephen King has masterfully interwoven dark, evocative fantasy and icy realism.]]> 463 Stephen King 0451210859 Heather 3 4.23 1987
author: Stephen King
name: Heather
average rating: 4.23
book published: 1987
rating: 3
read at: 2011/10/01
date added: 2011/10/17
shelves:
review:

]]> 24
Ignoring such dangers - and yet curiously obsessed by them - Bill Bryson journeyed to Australia and promptly fell in love with the country. And who can blame him? The people are cheerful, extroverted, quick-witted and unfailingly obliging: their cities are safe and clean and nearly always built on water; the food is excellent; the beer is cold and the sun nearly always shines. Life doesn't get much better than this...]]> 335 Bill Bryson 0767903862 Heather 2 4.06 2000
author: Bill Bryson
name: Heather
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2000
rating: 2
read at: 2011/10/12
date added: 2011/10/17
shelves:
review:
Worst travel book I've ever read. It earned the 2nd star only because of a few morsels of insight and humor that kept me reading on, hoping for Bryson's usual wit and wisdom to kick in. It didn't. Even more embarrassing was the obvious lack of research or investigation of any kind into Aboriginal Australia, which led to Bryson's overt ignorance on the topic. In his effort to pump up the country and present it as a place full of happy, beautiful, fun-loving, beer-drinking people, it would have been too serious and tarnishing to give attention to that small matter.
]]> 8366402 The New Yorker’s twenty best American fiction writers under forty, has spun a timeless novel that will establish her as one of the most vibrant, original authors of her generation.

In a Balkan country mending from years of conflict, Natalia, a young doctor, arrives on a mission of mercy at an orphanage by the sea. By the time she and her lifelong friend ZĂłra begin to inoculate the children there, she feels age-old superstitions and secrets gathering everywhere around her. Secrets her outwardly cheerful hosts have chosen not to tell her. Secrets involving the strange family digging for something in the surrounding vineyards. Secrets hidden in the landscape itself.

But Natalia is also confronting a private, hurtful mystery of her own: the inexplicable circumstances surrounding her beloved grandfather’s recent death. After telling her grandmother that he was on his way to meet Natalia, he instead set off for a ramshackle settlement none of their family had ever heard of and died there alone. A famed physician, her grandfather must have known that he was too ill to travel. Why he left home becomes a riddle Natalia is compelled to unravel.

Grief struck and searching for clues to her grandfather’s final state of mind, she turns to the stories he told her when she was a child. On their weeklytrips to the zoo he would read to her from a worn copy of Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book, which he carried with him everywhere; later, he told her stories of his own encounters over many years with “the deathless man,� a vagabond who claimed to be immortal and appeared never to age. But the most extraordinary story of all is the one her grandfather never told her, the one Natalia must discover for herself. One winter during the Second World War, his childhood village was snowbound, cut off even from the encroaching German invaders but haunted by another, fierce presence: a tiger who comes ever closer under cover of darkness. “These stories,� Natalia comes to understand, “run like secret rivers through all the other stories� of her grandfather’s life. And it is ultimately within these rich, luminous narratives that she will find the answer she is looking for.]]> 338 Téa Obreht 0385343833 Heather 0 to-read 3.41 2011
author: TĂ©a Obreht
name: Heather
average rating: 3.41
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2011/10/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 6728738 At the end of her bestselling memoir Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert fell in love with Felipe, a Brazilian-born man of Australian citizenship who'd been living in Indonesia when they met. Resettling in America, the couple swore eternal fidelity to each other, but also swore to never, ever, under any circumstances get legally married. (Both were survivors of previous bad divorces. Enough said.) But providence intervened one day in the form of the United States government, which-after unexpectedly detaining Felipe at an American border crossing-gave the couple a choice: they could either get married, or Felipe would never be allowed to enter the country again. Having been effectively sentenced to wed, Gilbert tackled her fears of marriage by delving into this topic completely, trying with all her might to discover through historical research, interviews, and much personal reflection what this stubbornly enduring old institution actually is. Told with Gilbert's trademark wit, intelligence and compassion, Committed attempts to "turn on all the lights" when it comes to matrimony, frankly examining questions of compatibility, infatuation, fidelity, family tradition, social expectations, divorce risks and humbling responsibilities. Gilbert's memoir is ultimately a clear-eyed celebration of love with all the complexity and consequence that real love, in the real world, actually entails.]]> 285 Elizabeth Gilbert 0670021652 Heather 3 non-fiction, peace-corps
I should state up front that i'm a "non-hater" of "Eat, Pray, Love," the memoir that most people use as their benchmark to love or fervently despise everything Gilbert stands for. I didn't love it, but I didn't hate it. And that's how I feel about this one, too.

I thoroughly enjoy her intimate writing style. She's self-deprecating, but not so much so that you feel alienated from her; she's totally, brutally, no-holds-barred honest about everything she's thinking, feeling, and saying; and she's definitely not circumspect, about anything. She made great use of anecdotes (both from her own family, her fiance's, and from history and the wider world she encounters on her quest to explore and define Marriage until she can't see straight anymore). Her circumstances are heartfelt (forced to marry again when her companion is denied entry into the U.S., in order to secure his visa), and it's clear that she's found, in her late 30's, a wonderful life partner - and her stories of their life together illustrate their ease and happiness with each other.

What I find "meh" about this book, however, is the fact that Gilbert is such a navel-gazer that she can't even stop talking about how much she hates that she's gazing at her navel all the time! By the final chapters, i wanted to call her up and say, "Do you care that much what other people think of what you do? Who cares if you've been married before and it ended badly? You've got a great thing going - marriage is not poison!" But, that probably wouldn't have helped her fulfill her book deal. ]]> 3.44 2009
author: Elizabeth Gilbert
name: Heather
average rating: 3.44
book published: 2009
rating: 3
read at: 2010/03/30
date added: 2010/09/07
shelves: non-fiction, peace-corps
review:
I just zipped through this while laying on the couch with a nasty spring cold, and it helped me pass the hours of boredom pretty well.

I should state up front that i'm a "non-hater" of "Eat, Pray, Love," the memoir that most people use as their benchmark to love or fervently despise everything Gilbert stands for. I didn't love it, but I didn't hate it. And that's how I feel about this one, too.

I thoroughly enjoy her intimate writing style. She's self-deprecating, but not so much so that you feel alienated from her; she's totally, brutally, no-holds-barred honest about everything she's thinking, feeling, and saying; and she's definitely not circumspect, about anything. She made great use of anecdotes (both from her own family, her fiance's, and from history and the wider world she encounters on her quest to explore and define Marriage until she can't see straight anymore). Her circumstances are heartfelt (forced to marry again when her companion is denied entry into the U.S., in order to secure his visa), and it's clear that she's found, in her late 30's, a wonderful life partner - and her stories of their life together illustrate their ease and happiness with each other.

What I find "meh" about this book, however, is the fact that Gilbert is such a navel-gazer that she can't even stop talking about how much she hates that she's gazing at her navel all the time! By the final chapters, i wanted to call her up and say, "Do you care that much what other people think of what you do? Who cares if you've been married before and it ended badly? You've got a great thing going - marriage is not poison!" But, that probably wouldn't have helped her fulfill her book deal.
]]> 6433752 The Lacuna is a poignant story of a man pulled between two nations as they invent their modern identities.

Born in the United States, reared in a series of provisional households in Mexico—from a coastal island jungle to 1930s Mexico City—Harrison Shepherd finds precarious shelter but no sense of home on his thrilling odyssey. Life is whatever he learns from housekeepers who put him to work in the kitchen, errands he runs in the streets, and one fateful day, by mixing plaster for famed Mexican muralist Diego Rivera. He discovers a passion for Aztec history and meets the exotic, imperious artist Frida Kahlo, who will become his lifelong friend. When he goes to work for Lev Trotsky, an exiled political leader fighting for his life, Shepherd inadvertently casts his lot with art and revolution, newspaper headlines and howling gossip, and a risk of terrible violence.

Meanwhile, to the north, the United States will soon be caught up in the internationalist goodwill of World War II. There in the land of his birth, Shepherd believes he might remake himself in America's hopeful image and claim a voice of his own. He finds support from an unlikely kindred soul, his stenographer, Mrs. Brown, who will be far more valuable to her employer than he could ever know. Through darkening years, political winds continue to toss him between north and south in a plot that turns many times on the unspeakable breach—the lacuna—between truth and public presumption.

With deeply compelling characters, a vivid sense of place, and a clear grasp of how history and public opinion can shape a life, Barbara Kingsolver has created an unforgettable portrait of the artist—and of art itself. The Lacuna is a rich and daring work of literature, establishing its author as one of the most provocative and important of her time.]]> 508 Barbara Kingsolver 0060852577 Heather 3 fiction
It's taken me a month to get through this one, and the fact that it's Kingsolver astounds me - I don't think I've ever taken more than 4 or 5 days to get through any of her works, so I'm still mulling over exactly what kept me going in fits and starts here. After I finished it (today), I actually wanted to start all over and read it again, despite the fact that I found the beginning to be dull and hard to follow. Yet again, it didn't add up to what I thought it would from the start, and that made it all the more pleasant to finally reach the conclusion, and improved my estimation of the book as a whole. It tends to ramble, and there are moments when I am sure that Kingsolver is just showing off her descriptive skills, convinced she had made some observational notes from a trip (or trips) to Mexico and just wanted to fit them in, regardless of whether the pieces aligned or not.

That said, this book made me think, and though I won't rehash the plot here (I don't like to do so in reviews when I can avoid it; you can read the book jacket or other reviews for a synopsis if you want one), the parts of the story - most of the last half - that deal with the "Red Scares" and McCarthyism of the 1940s and 50s drew startling parallels in my mind with some very current issues. The changes to the Texas Board of Education's school curriculum, curtailing mentions of and context for discussing Thomas Jefferson or how much to increase the role of Christianity in the founding fathers' intentions...the Islamic Center proposed to be built near Ground Zero and the fury of public sentiment connecting Islam in general with terror and evil...both of these situations immediately recalled for me the ways in which people feared and talked about Communism and education in those days. Kingsolver masterfully brings this piece of American history into focus, without ever having to instruct the reader to draw these conclusions. And I would be interested to hear what other conclusions readers drew from this book, in addition to or instead of the ones I found. This is where she earned the invisible 1/2 star from me.]]> 3.80 2009
author: Barbara Kingsolver
name: Heather
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2009
rating: 3
read at: 2010/08/27
date added: 2010/08/27
shelves: fiction
review:
This is the first time I've ever really wished Ĺ·±¦ÓéŔÖ had a "1/2 star" rating option. I don't want to give "The Lacuna" 4 stars, but 3 stars seems stingy. So, 3.5 stars is what I really meant, and I'm telling you right upfront.

It's taken me a month to get through this one, and the fact that it's Kingsolver astounds me - I don't think I've ever taken more than 4 or 5 days to get through any of her works, so I'm still mulling over exactly what kept me going in fits and starts here. After I finished it (today), I actually wanted to start all over and read it again, despite the fact that I found the beginning to be dull and hard to follow. Yet again, it didn't add up to what I thought it would from the start, and that made it all the more pleasant to finally reach the conclusion, and improved my estimation of the book as a whole. It tends to ramble, and there are moments when I am sure that Kingsolver is just showing off her descriptive skills, convinced she had made some observational notes from a trip (or trips) to Mexico and just wanted to fit them in, regardless of whether the pieces aligned or not.

That said, this book made me think, and though I won't rehash the plot here (I don't like to do so in reviews when I can avoid it; you can read the book jacket or other reviews for a synopsis if you want one), the parts of the story - most of the last half - that deal with the "Red Scares" and McCarthyism of the 1940s and 50s drew startling parallels in my mind with some very current issues. The changes to the Texas Board of Education's school curriculum, curtailing mentions of and context for discussing Thomas Jefferson or how much to increase the role of Christianity in the founding fathers' intentions...the Islamic Center proposed to be built near Ground Zero and the fury of public sentiment connecting Islam in general with terror and evil...both of these situations immediately recalled for me the ways in which people feared and talked about Communism and education in those days. Kingsolver masterfully brings this piece of American history into focus, without ever having to instruct the reader to draw these conclusions. And I would be interested to hear what other conclusions readers drew from this book, in addition to or instead of the ones I found. This is where she earned the invisible 1/2 star from me.
]]> 4162673 416 P.D. James 0571242448 Heather 3 fiction 3.78 2008
author: P.D. James
name: Heather
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2008
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2010/08/21
shelves: fiction
review:

]]> 37781 Things Fall Apart is written with remarkable economy and subtle irony. Uniquely and richly African, at the same time it reveals Achebe's keen awareness of the human qualities common to men of all times and places.]]> 215 Chinua Achebe Heather 0 fiction, peace-corps, to-read 3.73 1958
author: Chinua Achebe
name: Heather
average rating: 3.73
book published: 1958
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2010/08/21
shelves: fiction, peace-corps, to-read
review:

]]> 4667024
Twenty-two-year-old Skeeter has just returned home after graduating from Ole Miss. She may have a degree, but it is 1962, Mississippi, and her mother will not be happy till Skeeter has a ring on her finger. Skeeter would normally find solace with her beloved maid Constantine, the woman who raised her, but Constantine has disappeared and no one will tell Skeeter where she has gone.

Aibileen is a black maid, a wise, regal woman raising her seventeenth white child. Something has shifted inside her after the loss of her own son, who died while his bosses looked the other way. She is devoted to the little girl she looks after, though she knows both their hearts may be broken.

Minny, Aibileen's best friend, is short, fat, and perhaps the sassiest woman in Mississippi. She can cook like nobody's business, but she can't mind her tongue, so she's lost yet another job. Minny finally finds a position working for someone too new to town to know her reputation. But her new boss has secrets of her own.

Seemingly as different from one another as can be, these women will nonetheless come together for a clandestine project that will put them all at risk. And why? Because they are suffocating within the lines that define their town and their times. And sometimes lines are made to be crossed.

In pitch-perfect voices, Kathryn Stockett creates three extraordinary women whose determination to start a movement of their own forever changes a town, and the way women, mothers, daughters, caregivers, friends, view one another. A deeply moving novel filled with poignancy, humor, and hope, The Help is a timeless and universal story about the lines we abide by, and the ones we don't.


Librarian's note: An alternate cover edition can be found here]]> 464 Kathryn Stockett 0399155341 Heather 3 4.46 2009
author: Kathryn Stockett
name: Heather
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2009
rating: 3
read at: 2010/08/01
date added: 2010/08/21
shelves:
review:

]]> 4954833 Hauntingly beautiful and heartbreaking, Colm TĂłibĂ­n's sixth novel, Brooklyn, is set in Brooklyn and Ireland in the early 1950s, when one young woman crosses the ocean to make a new life for herself.

Eilis Lacey has come of age in small-town Ireland in the years following World War Two. Though skilled at bookkeeping, she cannot find a job in the miserable Irish economy. When an Irish priest from Brooklyn offers to sponsor Eilis in America--to live and work in a Brooklyn neighborhood "just like Ireland"--she decides she must go, leaving her fragile mother and her charismatic sister behind.

Eilis finds work in a department store on Fulton Street, and when she least expects it, finds love. Tony, a blond Italian from a big family, slowly wins her over with patient charm. He takes Eilis to Coney Island and Ebbets Field, and home to dinner in the two-room apartment he shares with his brothers and parents. He talks of having children who are Dodgers fans. But just as Eilis begins to fall in love with Tony, devastating news from Ireland threatens the promise of her future.]]> 262 Colm TĂłibĂ­n 1439138311 Heather 3 fiction, peace-corps 3.71 2009
author: Colm TĂłibĂ­n
name: Heather
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2009
rating: 3
read at: 2010/05/05
date added: 2010/05/05
shelves: fiction, peace-corps
review:

]]> 4332082
Enter Claire Pendleton from London. Months after her husband is transferred to Hong Kong in 1951, she accepts a position as a piano teacher to the daughter of a wealthy couple, the Chens. Claire begins to see the appeal of the sweltering city and is soon taken in by the Chen's driver, the curiously underutilized Will Truesdale. A handsome charmer with a mysterious limp, Will appears to be the perfect companion for Claire, who's often left to her own devices. But a further examination leaves her with more questions than answers.

An intricately woven tale of lives changed by historical events, Lee's debut brings this hothouse flower of a city alive with passion, and imagines characters both unforgettable and tragic.]]> 328 Janice Y.K. Lee 0670020486 Heather 3 fiction, peace-corps 3.35 2009
author: Janice Y.K. Lee
name: Heather
average rating: 3.35
book published: 2009
rating: 3
read at: 2010/05/02
date added: 2010/05/05
shelves: fiction, peace-corps
review:

]]> 23202 Finalist for the National Book Award 2002

Look out for Elizabeth Gilbert's new book, Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear, on sale now!
In this rousing examination of contemporary American male identity, acclaimed author and journalist Elizabeth Gilbert explores the fascinating true story of Eustace Conway. In 1977, at the age of seventeen, Conway left his family's comfortable suburban home to move to the Appalachian Mountains. For more than two decades he has lived there, making fire with sticks, wearing skins from animals he has trapped, and trying to convince Americans to give up their materialistic lifestyles and return with him back to nature. To Gilbert, Conway's mythical character challenges all our assumptions about what it is to be a modern man in America; he is a symbol of much we feel how our men should be, but rarely are.]]> 271 Elizabeth Gilbert 0142002836 Heather 4 non-fiction, peace-corps
I breezed through this one quickly, as the narrative is inviting and moves forward at a fast pace. I particularly enjoyed the way Gilbert builds Conway's background: at first, you are in awe of this man, how he has taught himself and others how to live self-sufficiently, his charisma and charm, and his pluck to do things such as take off and ride across the U.S. on horseback. But then, as she starts to fill in the blanks (so to speak), you start to see the man through her eyes, and through the eyes of the others who have orbited him, the majority of whom have basically ended up burned by flying too close to this guy's proverbial fire. Much in the way that Gilbert points out happens to most people: first there is awe, then there is anger, disappointment, bewilderment, and ultimately, distance between you and him.

A fascinating profile!]]> 3.80 2002
author: Elizabeth Gilbert
name: Heather
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2002
rating: 4
read at: 2010/05/01
date added: 2010/05/05
shelves: non-fiction, peace-corps
review:
Finally, an Elizabeth Gilbert book I can really get behind! I had a suspicion I would like this book, mostly because it eliminates almost all of the navel-gazing house of cards her other books set up - because it is not, entirely, about her! Her humor and insight shine through, with the perfect amount of her own connection to the material built in to create a viable, genuine story, but leaving the majority of her own baggage at the door. This instead leaves more room for the baggage of her primary subject, her friend Eustace Conway, the last American man to whom the title refers.

I breezed through this one quickly, as the narrative is inviting and moves forward at a fast pace. I particularly enjoyed the way Gilbert builds Conway's background: at first, you are in awe of this man, how he has taught himself and others how to live self-sufficiently, his charisma and charm, and his pluck to do things such as take off and ride across the U.S. on horseback. But then, as she starts to fill in the blanks (so to speak), you start to see the man through her eyes, and through the eyes of the others who have orbited him, the majority of whom have basically ended up burned by flying too close to this guy's proverbial fire. Much in the way that Gilbert points out happens to most people: first there is awe, then there is anger, disappointment, bewilderment, and ultimately, distance between you and him.

A fascinating profile!
]]> 129520
Geoffrey Robertson, an internationally renowned human rights lawyer, provides a vivid new reading of the tumultuous Civil War years, exposing long-hidden truths: that the King was guilty as charged, that his execution was necessary to establish the sovereignty of Parliament, that the regicide trials were rigged and their victims should be seen as national heroes.

John Cooke sacrificed his own life to make tyranny a crime. His trial of Charles I, the first trial of a head of state for waging war on his own people, became a forerunner of the trials of Augusto Pinochet, Slobodan Milosevic, and Saddam Hussein. This is a superb work of history that casts a revelatory light on some of the most important issues of our time.]]> 429 Geoffrey Robertson 1400044510 Heather 4 non-fiction, peace-corps
This is an excellent book for law students, history buffs, and law history buffs.]]> 4.22 2005
author: Geoffrey Robertson
name: Heather
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2005
rating: 4
read at: 2010/04/21
date added: 2010/05/05
shelves: non-fiction, peace-corps
review:
A fascinating account of the English legal system, the birth of the English constitutional monarchy, and an intriguing analysis of precedents that have paved the way for world leaders to be tried for their crimes against their own people (Slobodan Milosevic and Pinochet in particular are highlighted).

This is an excellent book for law students, history buffs, and law history buffs.
]]> 2967752
We are in the center of Paris, in an elegant apartment building inhabited by bourgeois families. Renée, the concierge, is witness to the lavish but vacuous lives of her numerous employers. Outwardly she conforms to every stereotype of the concierge: fat, cantankerous, addicted to television. Yet, unbeknownst to her employers, Renée is a cultured autodidact who adores art, philosophy, music, and Japanese culture. With humor and intelligence she scrutinizes the lives of the building's tenants, who for their part are barely aware of her existence.

Then there's Paloma, a twelve-year-old genius. She is the daughter of a tedious parliamentarian, a talented and startlingly lucid child who has decided to end her life on the sixteenth of June, her thirteenth birthday. Until then she will continue behaving as everyone expects her to behave: a mediocre pre-teen high on adolescent subculture, a good but not an outstanding student, an obedient if obstinate daughter.

Paloma and Renée hide both their true talents and their finest qualities from a world they suspect cannot or will not appreciate them. They discover their kindred souls when a wealthy Japanese man named Ozu arrives in the building. Only he is able to gain Paloma's trust and to see through Renée's timeworn disguise to the secret that haunts her. This is a moving, funny, triumphant novel that exalts the quiet victories of the inconspicuous among us.]]> 325 Muriel Barbery 1933372605 Heather 0 to-read, fiction, peace-corps 3.76 2006
author: Muriel Barbery
name: Heather
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2010/05/02
shelves: to-read, fiction, peace-corps
review:

]]> 103162 Wilderness Tips take us into the strange and secret places of the heart and inform the familiar world in which we live with truths that cut to the bone.

Contents:
True trash --
Hairball --
Isis in darkness --
The bog man --
Death by landscape --
Uncles --
The age of lead --
Weight --
Wilderness tips --
Hack Wednesday.]]> 228 Margaret Atwood 0385491115 Heather 0 fiction, to-read 3.83 1991
author: Margaret Atwood
name: Heather
average rating: 3.83
book published: 1991
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2010/05/01
shelves: fiction, to-read
review:

]]> 11275
In a Tokyo suburb a young man named Toru Okada searches for his wife's missing cat. Soon he finds himself looking for his wife as well in a netherworld that lies beneath the placid surface of Tokyo. As these searches intersect, Okada encounters a bizarre group of allies and antagonists: a psychic prostitute; a malevolent yet mediagenic politician; a cheerfully morbid sixteen-year-old-girl; and an aging war veteran who has been permanently changed by the hideous things he witnessed during Japan's forgotten campaign in Manchuria.

Gripping, prophetic, suffused with comedy and menace, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is a tour de force equal in scope to the masterpieces of Mishima and Pynchon.]]> 607 Haruki Murakami 0965341984 Heather 0 fiction, to-read 4.16 1994
author: Haruki Murakami
name: Heather
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1994
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2010/05/01
shelves: fiction, to-read
review:

]]> 250825 Library Journal
Preface
Introduction: Race matters
Nihilism in Black America
The pitfalls of racial reasoning
The crisis of Black leadership
Demystifying the new Black conservatism
Beyond affirmative action: equality and identity
On Black-Jewish relations
Black sexuality: the taboo subject
Malcolm X and Black rage
Epilogue to the Vintage edition]]> 159 Cornel West 0679749861 Heather 0 non-fiction, to-read 4.15 1993
author: Cornel West
name: Heather
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1993
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2010/05/01
shelves: non-fiction, to-read
review:

]]> 210041
When Beppe Severgnini and his wife rented a creaky house in Georgetown they were determined to see if they could adapt to a full four seasons in a country obsessed with ice cubes, air-conditioning, recliner chairs, and, of all things, after-dinner cappuccinos. From their first encounters with cryptic rental listings to their back-to-Europe yard sale twelve months later, Beppe explores this foreign land with the self-described patience of a mildly inappropriate beachcomber, holding up a mirror to America’s signature manners and mores. Succumbing to his surroundings day by day, he and his wife find themselves developing a taste for Klondike bars and Samuel Adams beer, and even that most peculiar of American institutions—the pancake house.

The realtor who waves a perfect bye-bye, the overzealous mattress salesman who bounces from bed to bed, and the plumber named Marx who deals in illegally powerful showerheads are just a few of the better-than-fiction characters the Severgninis encounter while foraging for clues to the real America. A trip to the computer store proves just as revealing as D.C.’s Fourth of July celebration, as do boisterous waiters angling for tips and no-parking signs crammed with a dozen lines of fine print.

By the end of his visit, Severgnini has come to grips with life in these United States—and written a charming, laugh-out-loud tribute.]]> 242 Beppe Severgnini 0767912365 Heather 0 non-fiction, to-read 3.38 1995
author: Beppe Severgnini
name: Heather
average rating: 3.38
book published: 1995
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2010/05/01
shelves: non-fiction, to-read
review:

]]> 4953 A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius is the moving memoir of a college senior who, in the space of five weeks, loses both of his parents to cancer and inherits his eight-year-old brother. Here is an exhilarating debut that manages to be simultaneously hilarious and wildly inventive as well as a deeply heartfelt story of the love that holds a family together.

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius is an instant classic that will be read for decades to come.]]> 530 Dave Eggers 0375725784 Heather 4 fiction, peace-corps
Yes, it is called a "heartbreaking work of staggering genius" and yes, that is a pompous title, and yes, the author is being ironic, not full of himself. Yes, the entire book is written as if the author THINKS he's that great, but at the same time, you know that he has written it that way to capture the essence of being 20-something and thinking you are that great, when by the time you reach the ripe old age of 30, you know that, in fact, you were an idiot at the time even though if someone had told you that then, you would have laughed at them and their idiocy for not appreciating that you are, in fact, that great. That is how this book is written, and if for that reason alone, I would have loved it.

But more than that, I also somehow...connected to this story. The non-traditionally autobiographical story of two brothers, Dave, older in years but not so in maturity, who is raising his little brother Toph in the wake of their parents' deaths from cancer. I only lost one parent as a child, but in my own experience there was enough cross-over to theirs that I found much more within the subtext of the book than I would have expected.

I even devoured "Mistakes We Knew We Were Making," the 40-page addendum to the paperback edition, just to find out some of the backstory. Within it I also found a footnote by Eggers in which he tries to explain how not ironic the book is meant to be, which in and of itself is an ironic statement. The entire story is like irony pretending not to be irony, in an endless loop.

Just read it and draw your own conclusions. And if you hate it, you might find that you talk just as much about how much you hated it as those of us do who loved it. And that, in my opinion, is half the appeal right there. How many other books can you say that about?]]> 3.70 2000
author: Dave Eggers
name: Heather
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2000
rating: 4
read at: 2009/10/27
date added: 2009/11/28
shelves: fiction, peace-corps
review:
I took a straw poll of my friends who have actually read this book, and I am pretty sure I am in the minority for giving it 4 stars. I loved it. I did. It fell short of 5 stars only because it went on a bit long (always a sign when you reach a certain point and think, man that was a great book! and then turn the page and find that there is still one more chapter)

Yes, it is called a "heartbreaking work of staggering genius" and yes, that is a pompous title, and yes, the author is being ironic, not full of himself. Yes, the entire book is written as if the author THINKS he's that great, but at the same time, you know that he has written it that way to capture the essence of being 20-something and thinking you are that great, when by the time you reach the ripe old age of 30, you know that, in fact, you were an idiot at the time even though if someone had told you that then, you would have laughed at them and their idiocy for not appreciating that you are, in fact, that great. That is how this book is written, and if for that reason alone, I would have loved it.

But more than that, I also somehow...connected to this story. The non-traditionally autobiographical story of two brothers, Dave, older in years but not so in maturity, who is raising his little brother Toph in the wake of their parents' deaths from cancer. I only lost one parent as a child, but in my own experience there was enough cross-over to theirs that I found much more within the subtext of the book than I would have expected.

I even devoured "Mistakes We Knew We Were Making," the 40-page addendum to the paperback edition, just to find out some of the backstory. Within it I also found a footnote by Eggers in which he tries to explain how not ironic the book is meant to be, which in and of itself is an ironic statement. The entire story is like irony pretending not to be irony, in an endless loop.

Just read it and draw your own conclusions. And if you hate it, you might find that you talk just as much about how much you hated it as those of us do who loved it. And that, in my opinion, is half the appeal right there. How many other books can you say that about?
]]> 6373962 316 Pietra Rivoli 0470287160 Heather 4 non-fiction, peace-corps 3.65 2005
author: Pietra Rivoli
name: Heather
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2005
rating: 4
read at: 2009/11/17
date added: 2009/11/12
shelves: non-fiction, peace-corps
review:

]]> 495395
Raised in a secular family but increasingly interested in the relevance of faith in our modern world, A.J. Jacobs decides to dive in headfirst and attempt to obey the hundreds of less-publicised rules. The resulting spiritual journey is at once funny and profound, reverent and irreverent, personal and universal, and will make you see history's most influential book with new eyes.]]> 388 A.J. Jacobs 0743291476 Heather 3 non-fiction, peace-corps
Jacobs is definitely not my favorite writer (nor is he my favorite person), but I appreciate what he's trying to do...though I think he takes things too far much of the time. So far, in fact, that I am amazed he's still married by the end. I had to keep reminding myself that this is a book of one man's experience, and shouldn't be taken for "truth" exactly.

One final thought: has anyone else who has read this book thought the whole premise was actually rather ironic? I mean, Jacobs spends enough time talking about how his Bible experiment is making him a more humble person, while writing a book about his personal experience: that is hardly humble. And on top of that, all the cover photographs of him posing with his sheep, staff, and white robes looking all Moses-like...don't they kind of go against some of the Biblical references inside....like eschewing idolatry?]]> 3.76 2007
author: A.J. Jacobs
name: Heather
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2007
rating: 3
read at: 2009/10/02
date added: 2009/10/02
shelves: non-fiction, peace-corps
review:
Hmmm. What to say? I don't know where to start. For one thing, I wrestled with this book the whole time I read it, between judgment of the author's choices and "literal" interpretations of the Bible, and genuine interest in what the experience was like for him.

Jacobs is definitely not my favorite writer (nor is he my favorite person), but I appreciate what he's trying to do...though I think he takes things too far much of the time. So far, in fact, that I am amazed he's still married by the end. I had to keep reminding myself that this is a book of one man's experience, and shouldn't be taken for "truth" exactly.

One final thought: has anyone else who has read this book thought the whole premise was actually rather ironic? I mean, Jacobs spends enough time talking about how his Bible experiment is making him a more humble person, while writing a book about his personal experience: that is hardly humble. And on top of that, all the cover photographs of him posing with his sheep, staff, and white robes looking all Moses-like...don't they kind of go against some of the Biblical references inside....like eschewing idolatry?
]]> 3711 White Teeth revels in the ecstatic hodgepodge of modern life, flirting with disaster, confounding expectations, and embracing the comedy of daily existence.]]> 448 Zadie Smith 0375703861 Heather 0 to-read 3.80 2000
author: Zadie Smith
name: Heather
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2000
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2009/10/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 18600 Touching the Void is the heart-stopping account of Joe Simpson's terrifying adventure in the Peruvian Andes. He and his climbing partner, Simon, reached the summit of the remote Siula Grande in June 1985. A few days later, Simon staggered into Base Camp, exhausted and frost-bitten, with news that that Joe was dead.

What happened to Joe, and how the pair dealt with the psychological traumas that resulted when Simon was forced into the appalling decision to cut the rope, makes not only an epic of survival but a compelling testament of friendship.]]> 218 Joe Simpson 0060730552 Heather 4 non-fiction, peace-corps
Reading Joe Simpson's firsthand account, my first reaction was, wow, this guy can climb AND write! His narrative is well-paced and gripping. I am still amazed at the clarity with which he is able to recall what must have been an excruciatingly painful injury. Having severely broken a bone myself before, I can honestly say that it is so painful you're lucky to even piece a sentence together, let alone drag yourself miles across desolate, empty snowfields and down rocky cliffs while not being able to even splint your own broken leg and kneecap. Just reiterating it makes me shiver.

That said, the only thing that made this book slightly inaccessible was the climbing lingo. Though Simpson provides a glossary of terms used in the back of the book, there was such a dizzying amount of jargon present that I had to figure out a lot of what was happening through context alone. It doesn't minimize the story at the heart of the matter; rather just causes a little befuddlement here and there.

One other fascinating aspect of this story is the way it becomes something of a study in human psychology - not just in sheer survival (Joe's ability to literally drag himself off the mountain while severely injured), but in the delicate relationships that develop between people who endeavor to take on a dangerous pursuit together, and how quickly that delicacy can be unbalanced when the un-wanted (but really not unexpected) happens. ]]> 4.22 1988
author: Joe Simpson
name: Heather
average rating: 4.22
book published: 1988
rating: 4
read at: 2009/09/04
date added: 2009/09/11
shelves: non-fiction, peace-corps
review:
Despite never having seen the IFC film that came out a few years ago, I was vaguely aware of this amazing true story of climbing partners faced with a serious accident befalling one of the men high in the Peruvian Andes in 1985.

Reading Joe Simpson's firsthand account, my first reaction was, wow, this guy can climb AND write! His narrative is well-paced and gripping. I am still amazed at the clarity with which he is able to recall what must have been an excruciatingly painful injury. Having severely broken a bone myself before, I can honestly say that it is so painful you're lucky to even piece a sentence together, let alone drag yourself miles across desolate, empty snowfields and down rocky cliffs while not being able to even splint your own broken leg and kneecap. Just reiterating it makes me shiver.

That said, the only thing that made this book slightly inaccessible was the climbing lingo. Though Simpson provides a glossary of terms used in the back of the book, there was such a dizzying amount of jargon present that I had to figure out a lot of what was happening through context alone. It doesn't minimize the story at the heart of the matter; rather just causes a little befuddlement here and there.

One other fascinating aspect of this story is the way it becomes something of a study in human psychology - not just in sheer survival (Joe's ability to literally drag himself off the mountain while severely injured), but in the delicate relationships that develop between people who endeavor to take on a dangerous pursuit together, and how quickly that delicacy can be unbalanced when the un-wanted (but really not unexpected) happens.
]]> 4069 Man's Search for Meaning has become one of the most influential books in America; it continues to inspire us all to find significance in the very act of living.]]> 165 Viktor E. Frankl 080701429X Heather 0 to-read 4.39 1946
author: Viktor E. Frankl
name: Heather
average rating: 4.39
book published: 1946
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2009/09/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 315425 The Omnivore's Dilemma, launched a national conversation about the American way of eating; now In Defense of Food shows us how to change it, one meal at a time. Pollan proposes a new answer to the question of what we should eat that comes down to seven simple but liberating words: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. Pollan's bracing and eloquent manifesto shows us how we can start making thoughtful food choices that will enrich our lives, enlarge our sense of what it means to be healthy, and bring pleasure back to eating.,,,]]> 205 Michael Pollan 1594201455 Heather 4 non-fiction, peace-corps
That said, I enjoyed both books. "IDOF" is, as one would expect, easy to read and full of very understandable passages - free of jargon, or at least with the jargon explained better - about the food system and what is flawed with the Western diet. Thought-provoking and, yes, diet-changing.]]> 4.07 2008
author: Michael Pollan
name: Heather
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2008
rating: 4
read at: 2009/08/29
date added: 2009/08/30
shelves: non-fiction, peace-corps
review:
Following "The Omnivore's Dilemma," reading "In Defense of Food" feels like the weightier, more scientific explanation for why our food growing/production/delivery system is pretty messed up. In a sense, I could almost picture Michael Pollan returning to his home office from a book tour for "OD" (as I'll call it), and, surveying the piles of notes and information he had amassed in researching "OD," deciding he had to write Volume II, only this time, using his data and notes to underscore his point. This is a man who is on a mission to get to us all - those of us who learn best through story-telling ("OD") and those who need a little more scientific proof that, yes, processed food is really, really, bad for us ("IDOF").

That said, I enjoyed both books. "IDOF" is, as one would expect, easy to read and full of very understandable passages - free of jargon, or at least with the jargon explained better - about the food system and what is flawed with the Western diet. Thought-provoking and, yes, diet-changing.
]]> 1768603
Balram Halwai is a complicated man. Servant. Philosopher. Entrepreneur. Murderer. Over the course of seven nights, by the scattered light of a preposterous chandelier, Balram tells us the terrible and transfixing story of how he came to be a success in life—having nothing but his own wits to help him along.

Born in the dark heart of India, Balram gets a break when he is hired as a driver for his village's wealthiest man, two house Pomeranians (Puddles and Cuddles), and the rich man's (very unlucky) son. From behind the wheel of their Honda City car, Balram's new world is a revelation. While his peers flip through the pages of Murder Weekly ("Love -- Rape -- Revenge!"), barter for girls, drink liquor (Thunderbolt), and perpetuate the Great Rooster Coop of Indian society, Balram watches his employers bribe foreign ministers for tax breaks, barter for girls, drink liquor (single-malt whiskey), and play their own role in the Rooster Coop. Balram learns how to siphon gas, deal with corrupt mechanics, and refill and resell Johnnie Walker Black Label bottles (all but one). He also finds a way out of the Coop that no one else inside it can perceive.

Balram's eyes penetrate India as few outsiders can: the cockroaches and the call centers; the prostitutes and the worshippers; the ancient and Internet cultures; the water buffalo and, trapped in so many kinds of cages that escape is (almost) impossible, the white tiger. And with a charisma as undeniable as it is unexpected, Balram teaches us that religion doesn't create virtue, and money doesn't solve every problem -- but decency can still be found in a corrupt world, and you can get what you want out of life if you eavesdrop on the right conversations.

The White Tiger recalls The Death of Vishnu and Bangkok 8 in ambition, scope, and narrative genius, with a mischief and personality all its own. Amoral, irreverent, deeply endearing, and utterly contemporary, this novel is an international publishing sensation —and a startling, provocative debut.]]> 276 Aravind Adiga 1416562591 Heather 4 fiction, peace-corps 3.76 2008
author: Aravind Adiga
name: Heather
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2008
rating: 4
read at: 2009/08/21
date added: 2009/08/29
shelves: fiction, peace-corps
review:
An unforgettable - if at times unsympathetic - narrator, and a peek into the underbelly of modern India turn this novel into a captivating read. By the end, I was mesmerized, but also completely depressed about humanity. I know it's not a "true story" in the sense that the events actually happened to a specific person, but at the same time, the tone of the book and the author's note at the end confirmed what I suspected: that slavery and servitude are alive and well in plenty of places in the world. When I finished the book, I started to wonder if I should have forgiven the narrator for his actions, all of which he carried out in the interests of securing for himself only what we all deserve: a little happiness, and personal freedom. A complex and compelling work of (almost-non) fiction!
]]> 6663417
� 단편소설� 으로 주목� 받은 주노 디아스� � �째 장편소설. 주노 디아스는 � � �째 장편소설� 퓰리��� 비롯� 미국비평가�회� � 다�� �을 ���으�, 아�존·뉴� �임스 베스트셀러� �르� � 대중�으로� � 성공� 거뒀�. �재 � 세계 28개국� �권� 팔렸으며, 미라맥스�서 2010� �화화할 �정이다.

몸무게가 110킬로그램� 육박�는 거구� ��기지� 않고 사�성이� 운동 신경� 젬병� 검둥이 뚱보 �스� 와�, 아름다운 외모� �머리� 가까운 검은 � 머리가 매력�인 �스카� �� 롤라, 아버지 아벨라르가 트루�요�게 '찍�' � 집�� 몰락� � �간� 셋째이� 막내딸로 �어�, 출� �체가 '비극'이�� �스카와 롤라� 엄�, 벨리시아.

도미�카 공화국과 미국 뉴저지�서 �란 작가� 경�� ��� 소설� 도미�카� 이민� 집��서 �어� �스카와 그� �� 롤라, 어머� 벨리시아와 할아버지 아벨라르 � 삼대� 걸친 � �� 가족� 이야기이�. 31년동� 독재� 트루�요� 철권통���� �죽이며 목�� 부지해야 �� � 국가� 이야기이� �신� 삶을 �겹� 살아� 개인들� �존기이기도 �다.

작가 주노 디아스는 트루�요 시대� 도미�카�서 �대 미국 뉴저지 패터슨으�, �스� 이야기�� 롤라 이야기로, 벨리시아 이야기�� 아벨라르 이야기로, 다시 �스카�� 롤라, 그리� 화� 유��르 �신� 이야기로 ��들며 굴곡 많은 주인공들� 삶을 다양� �도�서 보여준�.]]> 428 Junot Díaz 895460711X Heather 4 fiction, peace-corps
One of the many joys of this novel is the style of the narrative, provided by a "family friend" of Oscar de Leon. At times I found myself laughing out loud at his ability to juxtapose legends from the Dominican Republic involving the atrocities of Trujillo to the Lord of the Rings saga (yes, I did say "Laugh Out Loud" and "Trujillo" in the same sentence, on purpose). The prose here just kinda...builds into this amazing rhapsody of urban lingo and sci-fi references. A combination that sounds, I know, quite oxymoronic. But trust me, it works. If anyone wants to borrow it, i'm happy to oblige!]]> 4.04 2007
author: Junot DĂ­az
name: Heather
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2007
rating: 4
read at: 2009/08/12
date added: 2009/08/12
shelves: fiction, peace-corps
review:
There's something compelling about this novel that starts to grow on you after 100 pages or so. I had no idea what I was getting into when I cracked this one open (a friend sent it to me from the US), and I'm kind of glad I didn't know anything about it at first. Therefore I am not going to summarize it too much here - all you need to know is that it is the story of a young man from a Dominican family, and of how his outwardly-appearance is of a total and complete sci-fi nerd, he plays a powerful role in the redemption of his family from a tragic history.

One of the many joys of this novel is the style of the narrative, provided by a "family friend" of Oscar de Leon. At times I found myself laughing out loud at his ability to juxtapose legends from the Dominican Republic involving the atrocities of Trujillo to the Lord of the Rings saga (yes, I did say "Laugh Out Loud" and "Trujillo" in the same sentence, on purpose). The prose here just kinda...builds into this amazing rhapsody of urban lingo and sci-fi references. A combination that sounds, I know, quite oxymoronic. But trust me, it works. If anyone wants to borrow it, i'm happy to oblige!
]]> 41865
First, Edward was a vampire.

Second, there was a part of him - and I didn't know how dominant that part might be - that thirsted for my blood.

And third, I was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with him.

Deeply seductive and extraordinarily suspenseful, Twilight is a love story with bite.]]> 498 Stephenie Meyer 0316015849 Heather 1 fiction, peace-corps
True: hard to put down.
Reason: it's a train wreck you can't turn away from.

True: I do not plan to read any of the sequels.
Reason: sometimes we have to retain our self-respect and turn away from the wreck.

i'd rather be reading Jodi Piccoult!]]> 3.66 2005
author: Stephenie Meyer
name: Heather
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2005
rating: 1
read at: 2009/08/04
date added: 2009/08/04
shelves: fiction, peace-corps
review:
i was warned....but no, I had to go ahead and read this for myself, all of the good/bad things I'd heard about these books be damned!

True: hard to put down.
Reason: it's a train wreck you can't turn away from.

True: I do not plan to read any of the sequels.
Reason: sometimes we have to retain our self-respect and turn away from the wreck.

i'd rather be reading Jodi Piccoult!
]]> 4989 The Red Tent combines rich storytelling with a valuable achievement in modern fiction: a new view of biblical women's society.]]> 324 Anita Diamant 0312353766 Heather 2 peace-corps, fiction
Hmph. I appreciate what Diamant tried to do, and it is refreshing to hear a story from the Bible told from a female perspective, one that I think we can all agree is sorely lacking from the Good Book.

That said, is it too much to ask that a novelization of a biblical story be written with more depth? Dinah, the protagonist, is sketched in the barest of lines, and while one would think this outlet would let the author take some license to provide more insight into what Dinah really thought and did, that insight is seriously lacking. Like eating a plain chocolate bar in one sitting, this book is an enjoyable and fast read on one hand, but leaves a too-sweet taste in the mouth, a little ache in the belly, and a wish for more caramel-and-peanuty-deliciousness on the inside.]]> 4.21 1997
author: Anita Diamant
name: Heather
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1997
rating: 2
read at: 2009/07/14
date added: 2009/08/03
shelves: peace-corps, fiction
review:
I'm not sure if disliking this novel makes me a misfit or not, but I've only ever heard people lavishing praise on "the Red Tent," as if this book itself were better than the original (i.e. The Bible).

Hmph. I appreciate what Diamant tried to do, and it is refreshing to hear a story from the Bible told from a female perspective, one that I think we can all agree is sorely lacking from the Good Book.

That said, is it too much to ask that a novelization of a biblical story be written with more depth? Dinah, the protagonist, is sketched in the barest of lines, and while one would think this outlet would let the author take some license to provide more insight into what Dinah really thought and did, that insight is seriously lacking. Like eating a plain chocolate bar in one sitting, this book is an enjoyable and fast read on one hand, but leaves a too-sweet taste in the mouth, a little ache in the belly, and a wish for more caramel-and-peanuty-deliciousness on the inside.
]]> 5174 Fall on Your Knees follows four remarkable sisters whose lives are filled with driving ambition, inescapable family bonds, and forbidden love. Their experiences will take them from their stormswept homeland, across the battlefields of World War I, to the freedom and independence of Jazz-era New York City.

Compellingly written, running the literary gamut from menacingly dark to hilariously funny, this is an epic saga of one family’s trials and triumphs in a world of sin, guilt, and redemption.]]> 672 Ann-Marie MacDonald 0743466527 Heather 4 fiction, peace-corps
My only criticism of the novel really has to do with the wrap-up. This is the sprawling story of a troubled Canadian family, and some of the characters submit too much to stereotype near the end (i.e. the daughter who is always left to support everyone turns into an embittered schoolmarm incapable of happiness, and the "bad girl" finds redemption, kind of). Still, the prose is compelling and the structure of the book keeps you turning pages until you're sad that you've reached the end.]]> 3.97 1996
author: Ann-Marie MacDonald
name: Heather
average rating: 3.97
book published: 1996
rating: 4
read at: 2009/07/20
date added: 2009/07/31
shelves: fiction, peace-corps
review:
There is definitely a pattern to my taste in fiction. This is a novel that appears to reveal all its secrets at the outset, but as it proceeds, the reader realizes that nothing is as it seems, nor are the characters you thought of as sympathetic really as forgivable as they had promised early on. This was MacDonald's debut, and though I haven't read anything else she's produced since this one, I will definitely pick up more of her work.

My only criticism of the novel really has to do with the wrap-up. This is the sprawling story of a troubled Canadian family, and some of the characters submit too much to stereotype near the end (i.e. the daughter who is always left to support everyone turns into an embittered schoolmarm incapable of happiness, and the "bad girl" finds redemption, kind of). Still, the prose is compelling and the structure of the book keeps you turning pages until you're sad that you've reached the end.
]]> 7244 The Poisonwood Bible is a story told by the wife and four daughters of Nathan Price, a fierce, evangelical Baptist who takes his family and mission to the Belgian Congo in 1959. They carry with them everything they believe they will need from home, but soon find that all of it -- from garden seeds to Scripture -- is calamitously transformed on African soil. What follows is a suspenseful epic of one family's tragic undoing and remarkable reconstruction over the course of three decades in postcolonial Africa.]]> 546 Barbara Kingsolver 0060786507 Heather 5 fiction, peace-corps 4.10 1998
author: Barbara Kingsolver
name: Heather
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1998
rating: 5
read at: 2009/07/31
date added: 2009/07/31
shelves: fiction, peace-corps
review:
I just picked up a copy of this book while browsing in a 5-story book store in Zagreb, Croatia...I had to ask 4 different book shops if there was a place that sold English books, and ended up in this emporium that I spent 3 hours wandering around. It was absolutely heavenly, mostly in that I have not had access to that kind of bookish-consumerism in nearly two years. What a treat that I stumbled upon one of my favorite books on sale in the fiction section - sometimes when you're traveling in a foreign country, all you want is an old favorite, a friend. That is this book for me - I've probably read it more than five times, and each time I read it, I am struck by how exquisite it is. Probably Kingsolver's masterpiece, to be honest. This edition, I was pleased to see, included an essay at the end that she had written about how she came to write the book. As it turns out, she had been sitting on the idea, and researching it, for more than twenty years before it was finally written and published. don't ask questions, just find a copy and read this book!
]]> 5205
A loner by nature, Alice is torn between a yearning for solitude coupled with a deep need to be at the center of a perfect family. On this particular day, Emma has started the morning with a violent tantrum, her little sister Claire is eating pennies, and it is Alice's turn to watch her neighbor's two small girls as well as her own. She absentmindedly steals a minute alone that quickly becomes ten: time enough for a devastating accident to occur. Her neighbor's daughter Lizzy drowns in the farm's pond, and Alice - whose own volatility and unmasked directness keep her on the outskirts of acceptance - becomes the perfect scapegoat. At the same time, a seemingly trivial incident from Alice's past resurfaces and takes on gigantic proportions, leading the Goodwins far from Lizzy's death into a maze of guilt and doubt culminating in a harrowing court trial and the family's shattering downfall.]]> 400 Jane Hamilton 0385720106 Heather 3 fiction, peace-corps 3.82 1992
author: Jane Hamilton
name: Heather
average rating: 3.82
book published: 1992
rating: 3
read at: 2009/06/03
date added: 2009/06/07
shelves: fiction, peace-corps
review:
This book is a sob story wrapped in a soap opera tucked inside a Shakespearean tragedy. It's also a mind warp, as it mostly takes place inside the heads of its primary characters, a husband and wife who deal with their family and personal problems in very different ways. Read this knowing you've got something a bit lighter to read afterwards, because it's a downer. But an interesting psychological study of how we deal with grief, death, and the breakdown of personal relationships.
]]> 58027 636 Margaret Atwood 3442723434 Heather 4 fiction, peace-corps 3.97 1996
author: Margaret Atwood
name: Heather
average rating: 3.97
book published: 1996
rating: 4
read at: 2009/06/03
date added: 2009/06/07
shelves: fiction, peace-corps
review:
As befits any of Atwood's exceptional novels, this book spirals around itself in layers and layers of intriguing mystery. I read this one cover to cover in about a week, and got totally caught up in the story. Atwood has a knack for hiding and revealing the right amount of information at the right points - turning this historical fiction/melodrama into a mystery of the human spirit and an indictment of endemic poverty and servitude of the 19th century. My only qualm lies with the perhaps too-high liberties she takes with some of the characters, some of whom turn more into caricatures than real people. But overall, an excellent addition to the Atwood collection.
]]> 14248
In her new essay collection, the beloved author of High Tide in Tucson brings to us, out of one of history's darker moments, an extended love song to the world we still have.

Whether she is contemplating the Grand Canyon, her vegetable garden, motherhood, genetic engineering, or the future of a nation founded on the best of all human impulses, these essays are grounded in the author's belief that our largest problems have grown from the earth's remotest corners as well as our own backyards, and that answers may lie in both those places.

Sometimes grave, occasionally hilarious, and ultimately persuasive, Small Wonder is a hopeful examination of the people we seem to be, and what we might yet make of ourselves.]]> 264 Barbara Kingsolver 0060504080 Heather 4 non-fiction, peace-corps
I did feel that her opinions get a little high-handed in some places (the two essays that bookend the collection come to mind in particular), but ultimately I see her purpose in putting these essays together: to provide a little perspective for those of us living in a rapidly changing world, and to help herself to gain a little perspective in her own life. ]]> 4.03 2002
author: Barbara Kingsolver
name: Heather
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2002
rating: 4
read at: 2009/04/30
date added: 2009/05/04
shelves: non-fiction, peace-corps
review:
This is a great collection of essays - a few at the beginning and end got me a little annoyed, but mostly I thoroughly enjoyed them. It was a nice opportunity to peek inside the mind of one of my favorite writers, and I was not disappointed. A few of my favorites included "Letter to my Mother," "Household Words," and "Lily's Chickens," which I assume was a prelude to her wonderful book, "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle."

I did feel that her opinions get a little high-handed in some places (the two essays that bookend the collection come to mind in particular), but ultimately I see her purpose in putting these essays together: to provide a little perspective for those of us living in a rapidly changing world, and to help herself to gain a little perspective in her own life.
]]> 83477 272 Alexandra Fuller 0330433997 Heather 2 non-fiction, peace-corps
I'm still processing this book. I think what bothered me about it was the fact that while I was reading it, i kept thinking, "Why on earth was this book even written? As some kind of catharsis for the author?" and basically that's probably the case. Fuller gets herself into a mess of trouble with a former soldier who fought in the Rhodesian wars, and tries to make this guy (referred to only as "K") into something human.

Ultimately, this is a story of pain and suffering, though whose remains unclear. "K" is not supposed to be a figure of sympathy (in my estimation), and Fuller gets mixed up in this guy's history, and acts as if writing this book was her only way to atone for wanting to tell his story in the first place. On top of that, she is both present too much (physically) in the story (told from her perspective) and completely absent (emotionally) at the same time. Her objectivity? Or shame for retracing this guy's worthless existence as he recounts all the fights and murders he's been party to? Ugh. I enjoyed her first memoir, but this seemed gratuitous. ]]> 3.80 2004
author: Alexandra Fuller
name: Heather
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2004
rating: 2
read at: 2009/05/02
date added: 2009/05/04
shelves: non-fiction, peace-corps
review:
I read this book in one day - a long day of traveling, actually, so maybe that was just a fluke. If i hadn't had anything else to read and if my iPod hadn't died some days before, I probably would have put this down long before finishing.

I'm still processing this book. I think what bothered me about it was the fact that while I was reading it, i kept thinking, "Why on earth was this book even written? As some kind of catharsis for the author?" and basically that's probably the case. Fuller gets herself into a mess of trouble with a former soldier who fought in the Rhodesian wars, and tries to make this guy (referred to only as "K") into something human.

Ultimately, this is a story of pain and suffering, though whose remains unclear. "K" is not supposed to be a figure of sympathy (in my estimation), and Fuller gets mixed up in this guy's history, and acts as if writing this book was her only way to atone for wanting to tell his story in the first place. On top of that, she is both present too much (physically) in the story (told from her perspective) and completely absent (emotionally) at the same time. Her objectivity? Or shame for retracing this guy's worthless existence as he recounts all the fights and murders he's been party to? Ugh. I enjoyed her first memoir, but this seemed gratuitous.
]]> 764073
In five chapters, each flawlessly executed from a different point of view "the mother receiving the order to evacuate; the daughter on the long train ride to the camp; the son in the desert encampment; the family's return to their home; and the bitter release of the father after more than four years in captivity" she has created a small tour de force, a novel of unrelenting economy and suppressed emotion.

Spare, intimate, arrestingly understated, When the Emperor Was Divine is a haunting evocation of a family in wartime and an unmistakably resonant lesson for our times. It heralds the arrival of a singularly gifted new novelist.

From the Hardcover edition.]]> 144 Julie Otsuka Heather 5 fiction, peace-corps
This book follows one Japanese-American family from California who are separated (the father is taken earlier) and interned in a camp in Utah during WWII.

It is told from multiple perspectives, but what I found most profound about this story was the fact that never, not once, is the family or its members given names, adding another layer to the indignity they already experience as Americans imprisoned by other Americans. They are nameless, but not faceless - though this is a work of fiction, it is impossible to forget, upon finishing this book, that this HAPPENED, and it happened in America, and it didn't happen all that long ago. For shame.]]> 3.80 2002
author: Julie Otsuka
name: Heather
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2002
rating: 5
read at: 2009/04/16
date added: 2009/04/16
shelves: fiction, peace-corps
review:
This is a slim volume that nearly reached perfection, in my estimation. How can a book be perfect? Well, in this case, it was the marriage of art and reality. The prose is stark and straightforward, yet it reads like poetry. The story itself is heart-wrenching but handled with dignity and honesty.

This book follows one Japanese-American family from California who are separated (the father is taken earlier) and interned in a camp in Utah during WWII.

It is told from multiple perspectives, but what I found most profound about this story was the fact that never, not once, is the family or its members given names, adding another layer to the indignity they already experience as Americans imprisoned by other Americans. They are nameless, but not faceless - though this is a work of fiction, it is impossible to forget, upon finishing this book, that this HAPPENED, and it happened in America, and it didn't happen all that long ago. For shame.
]]> 1202
These may not sound like typical questions for an economist to ask. But Steven D. Levitt is not a typical economist. He is a much heralded scholar who studies the stuff and riddles of everyday life -- from cheating and crime to sports and child rearing -- and whose conclusions regularly turn the conventional wisdom on its head. He usually begins with a mountain of data and a simple, unasked question. Some of these questions concern life-and-death issues; others have an admittedly freakish quality. Thus the new field of study contained in this book: freakonomics.

Through forceful storytelling and wry insight, Levitt and co-author Stephen J. Dubner show that economics is, at root, the study of incentives -- how people get what they want, or need, especially when other people want or need the same thing. In Freakonomics, they set out to explore the hidden side of ... well, everything. The inner workings of a crack gang. The truth about real-estate agents. The myths of campaign finance. The telltale marks of a cheating schoolteacher. The secrets of the Ku Klux Klan.

What unites all these stories is a belief that the modern world, despite a surfeit of obfuscation, complication, and downright deceit, is not impenetrable, is not unknowable, and -- if the right questions are asked -- is even more intriguing than we think. All it takes is a new way of looking. Steven Levitt, through devilishly clever and clear-eyed thinking, shows how to see through all the clutter.

Freakonomics establishes this unconventional premise: If morality represents how we would like the world to work, then economics represents how it actually does work. It is true that readers of this book will be armed with enough riddles and stories to last a thousand cocktail parties. But Freakonomics can provide more than that. It will literally redefine the way we view the modern world.
(front flap)]]> 268 Steven D. Levitt 0061234001 Heather 1 non-fiction, peace-corps
On the (much heavier) minus side, pretty much everything the authors say just doesn't seem to hold much water. I felt like every chapter kept me asking more questions (which weren't answered), and then things were sewed up by the end of the section with a simple, whizz-bang, golly-gee, isn't it cool kind of conclusion. Also I couldn't help but be irritated by their "the numbers don't lie" (yes they can - or at least be interpreted many different ways) way of dealing with topics of a sensitive nature. They were like bulls in a china shop with their careless handling of issues like parenting, child deaths, abortion, and (of all things) name-giving.

Glad I finally read so I don't have to bother wondering about it anymore. ]]> 4.01 2005
author: Steven D. Levitt
name: Heather
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2005
rating: 1
read at: 2009/04/15
date added: 2009/04/16
shelves: non-fiction, peace-corps
review:
On the plus side, this was a fast-paced book to read.

On the (much heavier) minus side, pretty much everything the authors say just doesn't seem to hold much water. I felt like every chapter kept me asking more questions (which weren't answered), and then things were sewed up by the end of the section with a simple, whizz-bang, golly-gee, isn't it cool kind of conclusion. Also I couldn't help but be irritated by their "the numbers don't lie" (yes they can - or at least be interpreted many different ways) way of dealing with topics of a sensitive nature. They were like bulls in a china shop with their careless handling of issues like parenting, child deaths, abortion, and (of all things) name-giving.

Glad I finally read so I don't have to bother wondering about it anymore.
]]> 40440
The enigmatic Winter has spent six decades creating various outlandish life histories for herself -- all of them inventions that have brought her fame and fortune but have kept her violent and tragic past a secret. Now old and ailing, she at last wants to tell the truth about her extraordinary life. She summons biographer Margaret Lea, a young woman for whom the secret of her own birth, hidden by those who loved her most, remains an ever-present pain. Struck by a curious parallel between Miss Winter's story and her own, Margaret takes on the commission.

As Vida disinters the life she meant to bury for good, Margaret is mesmerized. It is a tale of gothic strangeness featuring the Angelfield family, including the beautiful and willful Isabelle, the feral twins Adeline and Emmeline, a ghost, a governess, a topiary garden and a devastating fire.

Margaret succumbs to the power of Vida's storytelling but remains suspicious of the author's sincerity. She demands the truth from Vida, and together they confront the ghosts that have haunted them while becoming, finally, transformed by the truth themselves.

The Thirteenth Tale is a love letter to reading, a book for the feral reader in all of us, a return to that rich vein of storytelling that our parents loved and that we loved as children. Diane Setterfield will keep you guessing, make you wonder, move you to tears and laughter and, in the end, deposit you breathless yet satisfied back upon the shore of your everyday life.]]> 406 Diane Setterfield 0743298020 Heather 3 fiction, peace-corps
Still, enjoyable if forgettable.]]> 3.96 2006
author: Diane Setterfield
name: Heather
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2006
rating: 3
read at: 2009/03/31
date added: 2009/03/31
shelves: fiction, peace-corps
review:
Interesting book...really the first "couldn't put down" i've read in some time. That said, I "couldn't put it down" because I really wanted to know if I had truly guessed the twist in the end. I sorta had, so when the end arrived, it felt half-baked. I wasn't a fan of the writing, and sometimes books about books and writers just seem cheap. Seriously, a character freaks out because "Jane Eyre" is being thrown in a fire by a crazy person? May I repeat, freaks out about the book, not about the crazy person about to burn the house down.

Still, enjoyable if forgettable.
]]> 22896 Alternate cover for ISBN 9780425190371 (currently here).

The Owens sisters confront the challenges of life and love in this bewitching novel from New York Times bestselling author Alice Hoffman.

For more than two hundred years, the Owens women have been blamed for everything that has gone wrong in their Massachusetts town. Gillian and Sally have endured that fate as well: as children, the sisters were forever outsiders, taunted, talked about, pointed at. Their elderly aunts almost seemed to encourage the whispers of witchery, with their musty house and their exotic concoctions and their crowd of black cats. But all Gillian and Sally wanted was to escape.

One will do so by marrying, the other by running away. But the bonds they share will bring them back—almost as if by magic...
]]> 286 Alice Hoffman Heather 3 fiction, peace-corps 3.70 1995
author: Alice Hoffman
name: Heather
average rating: 3.70
book published: 1995
rating: 3
read at: 2009/03/19
date added: 2009/03/28
shelves: fiction, peace-corps
review:

]]> 29946
In Illusions, Richard Bach takes to the air to discover the ageless truths that give our souls wings: that people don't need airplanes to soar...that even the darkest clouds have meaning once we lift ourselves above them... and that messiahs can be found in the unlikeliest places � like hay fields, one-traffic-light midwestern towns, and most of all, deep within ourselves.]]> 144 Richard Bach Heather 3 fiction, peace-corps 4.16 1977
author: Richard Bach
name: Heather
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1977
rating: 3
read at: 2009/02/24
date added: 2009/03/02
shelves: fiction, peace-corps
review:
A quick read, thought provoking and intriguing. However, it's a tired parable, and perhaps i'm just too logical and analytically-minded to really appreciate the truly unbelievable parts. I do think that Richard Bach could teach Ekhart Tolle (see "The Power of Now") how to really impart one's beliefs on a waiting audience. Storytelling...at the least, I can enjoy it for the plot, even if I don't buy the imagery. Take that, new age self-help authors!!
]]> 77142 460 David Guterson 067976402X Heather 3 fiction, peace-corps
However, something about it left a rather sour taste in my mouth, and I'm having a hard time putting my finger on exactly what bothered me. Perhaps it was the way I resented the actions and intentions of one of the main protagonists; or the drawn-out plot device of using a big snowstorm as a blown-out metaphor for covering up the past. It was like an elephant in the room.

Nonetheless, a lovely book with an instructive backstory. ]]> 3.86 1994
author: David Guterson
name: Heather
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1994
rating: 3
read at: 2009/02/21
date added: 2009/03/02
shelves: fiction, peace-corps
review:
I did enjoy this book. I wouldn't have given it 4 stars if I didn't. As always, I loved the structure of the book - it passed in and out of eras in time, following the characters' relationships as they developed and deteriorated, with (respectively) happy and disastrous consequences. Most of all, I was fascinated by the way the internment of Japanese-Americans during WWII was woven into the story. As I was reading, I found myself getting up and doing a little Wikipedia research on this darkest of times in recent American history, and it piqued my interest in that particular subject.

However, something about it left a rather sour taste in my mouth, and I'm having a hard time putting my finger on exactly what bothered me. Perhaps it was the way I resented the actions and intentions of one of the main protagonists; or the drawn-out plot device of using a big snowstorm as a blown-out metaphor for covering up the past. It was like an elephant in the room.

Nonetheless, a lovely book with an instructive backstory.
]]> 10916
So when midnight calls from the hospital come in, no one is ready for the appalling truth: Emily is dead at seventeen from a gunshot wound to the head. There's a single unspent bullet in the gun that Chris took from his father's cabinet—a bullet that Chris tells police he intended for himself. But a local detective has doubts about the suicide pact that Chris has described.]]> 512 Jodi Picoult 0061150142 Heather 1 peace-corps 4.03 1998
author: Jodi Picoult
name: Heather
average rating: 4.03
book published: 1998
rating: 1
read at: 2008/11/26
date added: 2009/02/19
shelves: peace-corps
review:
i am never going to try to read Jodi Piccoult again.
]]> 968 The da Vinci Code, The da Vinci Code, The da Vinci Code, and The da Vinci Code

While in Paris on business, Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon receives an urgent late-night phone call: the elderly curator of the Louvre has been murdered inside the museum. Near the body, police have found a baffling cipher. While working to solve the enigmatic riddle, Langdon is stunned to discover it leads to a trail of clues hidden in the works of Da Vinci -- clues visible for all to see -- yet ingeniously disguised by the painter.

Langdon joins forces with a gifted French cryptologist, Sophie Neveu, and learns the late curator was involved in the Priory of Sion -- an actual secret society whose members included Sir Isaac Newton, Botticelli, Victor Hugo, and Da Vinci, among others.

In a breathless race through Paris, London, and beyond, Langdon and Neveu match wits with a faceless powerbroker who seems to anticipate their every move. Unless Langdon and Neveu can decipher the labyrinthine puzzle in time, the Priory's ancient secret -- and an explosive historical truth -- will be lost forever.

The Da Vinci Code heralds the arrival of a new breed of lightning-paced, intelligent thriller utterly unpredictable right up to its stunning conclusion.]]> 489 Dan Brown Heather 3 peace-corps, fiction 3.92 2003
author: Dan Brown
name: Heather
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2003
rating: 3
read at: 2008/12/28
date added: 2009/02/19
shelves: peace-corps, fiction
review:
entertaining, fast-paced, requires little thinking. excellent for a long train or bus ride.
]]> 6708 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9781577314806.

To make the journey into the Now we will need to leave our analytical mind and its false created self, the ego, behind. From the very first page of Eckhart Tolle's extraordinary book, we move rapidly into a significantly higher altitude where we breathe a lighter air. We become connected to the indestructible essence of our Being, “The eternal, ever present One Life beyond the myriad forms of life that are subject to birth and death.� Although the journey is challenging, Eckhart Tolle uses simple language and an easy question-and-answer format to guide us.

A word-of-mouth phenomenon since its first publication, The Power of Now is one of those rare books with the power to create an experience in readers, one that can radically change their lives for the better.]]> 229 Eckhart Tolle Heather 1 non-fiction, peace-corps
Tolle is obnoxious, and I can't get past that. his ideas are intriguing, and intellectually I do buy what he's selling (that in order to appreciate what we have and to move forward and be our best selves, we have to live now, not in the future, and not in the past).

But fundamentally I just can't stand the way it's written in a question and answer format, and Tolle's basic manner of telling you that you're not enlightened, and that he is and therefore he knows more than you, even though that's exactly what he's trying to tell you he isn't.

enough! ]]> 4.16 1997
author: Eckhart Tolle
name: Heather
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1997
rating: 1
read at: 2008/11/17
date added: 2009/02/17
shelves: non-fiction, peace-corps
review:
Confession: I am a liar. I did not "read" this book, at least not all of it. Let's just say i've been "Reading" it for a few months. OK stopped reading it 2 months ago and have no intentions of finishing it. A dear friend practically pushed it on me a while ago, and I've given it a shot...but no. sorry.

Tolle is obnoxious, and I can't get past that. his ideas are intriguing, and intellectually I do buy what he's selling (that in order to appreciate what we have and to move forward and be our best selves, we have to live now, not in the future, and not in the past).

But fundamentally I just can't stand the way it's written in a question and answer format, and Tolle's basic manner of telling you that you're not enlightened, and that he is and therefore he knows more than you, even though that's exactly what he's trying to tell you he isn't.

enough!
]]> 7742 Ahab's Wife is a remarkable epic spanning a rich, eventful, and dramatic life. Inspired by a brief passage in Moby Dick, it is the story of Una, exiled as a child to live in a lighthouse, removed from the physical and emotional abuse of a religion-mad father. It is the romantic adventure of a young woman setting sail in a cabin boy's disguise to encounter darkness, wonder, and catastrophe; the story of a devoted wife who witnesses her husband's destruction by obsession and madness. Ultimately it is the powerful and moving story of a woman's triumph over tragedy and loss through her courage, creativity, and intelligence.]]> 668 Sena Jeter Naslund 0060838744 Heather 2 fiction, peace-corps
also, one more thing that irked me about this book, and maybe it's a bit nitpicky, but I don't care. Naslund never thanks or acknowledges Herman Melville anywhere in the book! That left a bad taste in my mouth. I mean c'mon - she's borrowing his characters for god's sake! anyway, that's all I have to say anymore about this book.]]> 4.03 1999
author: Sena Jeter Naslund
name: Heather
average rating: 4.03
book published: 1999
rating: 2
read at: 2009/01/22
date added: 2009/02/10
shelves: fiction, peace-corps
review:
read this book if you like too-wordy drivel. the beginning was interesting and I sped through it, but i soon realized that the editor was asleep at the wheel on this one. Could have been cut by several 1,000 words. If you've read "Moby Dick," take this Captain Ahab with a BIG grain of salt!

also, one more thing that irked me about this book, and maybe it's a bit nitpicky, but I don't care. Naslund never thanks or acknowledges Herman Melville anywhere in the book! That left a bad taste in my mouth. I mean c'mon - she's borrowing his characters for god's sake! anyway, that's all I have to say anymore about this book.
]]> 14050 537 Audrey Niffenegger 0965818675 Heather 4 peace-corps, fiction 3.90 2003
author: Audrey Niffenegger
name: Heather
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2003
rating: 4
read at: 2008/11/01
date added: 2009/02/10
shelves: peace-corps, fiction
review:

]]> 4214 460 Yann Martel 0770430074 Heather 4 fiction, peace-corps
I will say that on the second read, i was left a bit wanting. I kind of wished that the last 10 pages had been left out, or were shortened a bit. I really hate it when authors over-explain themselves. I think that's my only real criticism here - otherwise a book I couldn't put down, that continues to make me think about all things in the world with a little more humility, and that can't be bad, right?]]> 3.94 2001
author: Yann Martel
name: Heather
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2001
rating: 4
read at: 2009/02/10
date added: 2009/02/10
shelves: fiction, peace-corps
review:
I read this book once several years ago, and enjoyed it without thinking too hard. I guess I really wasn't thinking too hard, because I totally forgot what happens in the end. But don't worry, no spoilers here, I won't tell you now.

I will say that on the second read, i was left a bit wanting. I kind of wished that the last 10 pages had been left out, or were shortened a bit. I really hate it when authors over-explain themselves. I think that's my only real criticism here - otherwise a book I couldn't put down, that continues to make me think about all things in the world with a little more humility, and that can't be bad, right?
]]> 3109 What should we have for dinner? For omnivore like ourselves, this simple question has always posed a dilemma. When you can eat just about anything nature (or the supermarket) has to offer, deciding what you should eat will inevitably stir anxiety, especially when some of the foods on offer might shorten your life. Today, buffered by one food fad after another, America is suffering from what can only be described as a national eating disorder. The omnivore’s dilemma has returned with a vengeance, as the cornucopia of the modern American supermarket and fast-food outlet confronts us with a bewildering and treacherous food landscape. What’s at stake in our eating choices is not only our own and our children’s health, but the health of the environment that sustains life on earth.
The Omnivore's Dilemma is groundbreaking book, in which one of America’s most fascinating, original, and elegant writers turns his own omnivorous mind to the seemingly straightforward question of what we should have for dinner. The question has confronted us since man discovered fire, but according to Michael Pollan, the bestselling author of The Botany of Desire, how we answer it today, at the dawn of the twenty-first century, may well determine our very survival as a species. Should we eat a fast-food hamburger? Something organic? Or perhaps something we hunt, gather, or grow ourselves?
To find out, Pollan follows each of the food chains that sustain us—industrial food, organic or alternative food, and food we forage ourselves—from the source to a final meal, and in the process develops a definitive account of the American way of eating. His absorbing narrative takes us from Iowa cornfields to food-science laboratories, from feedlots and fast-food restaurants to organic farms and hunting grounds, always emphasizing our dynamic coevolutionary relationship with the handful of plant and animal species we depend on. Each time Pollan sits down to a meal, he deploys his unique blend of personal and investigative journalism to trace the origins of everything consumed, revealing what we unwittingly ingest and explaining how our taste for particular foods and flavors reflects our evolutionary inheritance.
The surprising answers Pollan offers to the simple question posed by this book have profound political, economic, psychological, and even moral implications for all of us. Ultimately, this is a book as much about visionary solutions as it is about problems, and Pollan contends that, when it comes to food, doing the right thing often turns out to be the tastiest thing an eater can do. Beautifully written and thrillingly argued, The Omnivore’s Dilemma promises to change the way we think about the politics and pleasure of eating. For anyone who reads it, dinner will never again look, or taste, quite the same.]]> 450 Michael Pollan 1594200823 Heather 4 peace-corps, non-fiction
By the end, when he's traipsing around the woods of northern California, clumsily hunting for wild boar and then later, bumbling around for wild morels and chanterelles, I laughed out loud more times than I could count. He had relaxed into this subject matter to the point where I thought, I bet this is the real Michael Pollan, not the uptight guy at the beginning.

That said, this book teaches you something (if you're willing to learn it) about where food comes from. And it does so in a way that dispenses with jargon and manages to get its point across with only a tangential amount of pretension. ]]> 4.18 2006
author: Michael Pollan
name: Heather
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2006
rating: 4
read at: 2009/02/10
date added: 2009/02/10
shelves: peace-corps, non-fiction
review:
One of the best aspects of this book has to be Michael Pollan's presence in the text. In the beginning, he's like a tour guide, but a polite and distant one. I could almost picture him in a suit and tie, or something equally as dressy, telling his natural history of food, in three parts.

By the end, when he's traipsing around the woods of northern California, clumsily hunting for wild boar and then later, bumbling around for wild morels and chanterelles, I laughed out loud more times than I could count. He had relaxed into this subject matter to the point where I thought, I bet this is the real Michael Pollan, not the uptight guy at the beginning.

That said, this book teaches you something (if you're willing to learn it) about where food comes from. And it does so in a way that dispenses with jargon and manages to get its point across with only a tangential amount of pretension.
]]> 136251
In this final, seventh installment of the Harry Potter series, J.K. Rowling unveils in spectacular fashion the answers to the many questions that have been so eagerly awaited.]]> 759 J.K. Rowling Heather 5 fiction, peace-corps 4.61 2007
author: J.K. Rowling
name: Heather
average rating: 4.61
book published: 2007
rating: 5
read at: 2009/01/09
date added: 2009/01/12
shelves: fiction, peace-corps
review:

]]> 2
Harry has had enough. He is beginning to think he must do something, anything, to change his situation, when the summer holidays come to an end in a very dramatic fashion. What Harry is about to discover in his new year at Hogwarts will turn his world upside down...]]> 912 J.K. Rowling Heather 5 fiction, peace-corps 4.50 2003
author: J.K. Rowling
name: Heather
average rating: 4.50
book published: 2003
rating: 5
read at: 2009/01/06
date added: 2009/01/06
shelves: fiction, peace-corps
review:

]]> 33687
Kaplan takes us on a spellbinding journey into the heart of a volatile region, stretching from Hungary and Romania to the far shores of the oil-rich Caspian Sea. Through dramatic stories of unforgettable characters, Kaplan illuminates the tragic history of this unstable area that he describes as the new fault line between East and West. He ventures from Turkey, Syria, and Israel to the turbulent countries of the Caucasus, from the newly rich city of Baku to the deserts of Turkmenistan and the killing fields of Armenia. The result is must reading for anyone concerned about the state of our world in the decades to come.]]> 384 Robert D. Kaplan 0375705767 Heather 4 peace-corps, non-fiction 4.03 2000
author: Robert D. Kaplan
name: Heather
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2000
rating: 4
read at: 2008/12/22
date added: 2008/12/24
shelves: peace-corps, non-fiction
review:
Though it took me the better part of 5 months to read this book - I went in bursts, reading 50 or 60 page sections, then put it down for a month or more - I found this book profound and frightening. Kaplan has a gift for observation and a way of describing details with such nuance that it is hard not to imagine yourself with him on his journeys across the Balkans, Turkey, the Middle East, and near Central Asia as he explores nascent democracies and reveals their fragile and breakable infrastructures. Though it was published almost a decade ago, none of his observations have become passe or anachronistic. Still relevant. A must-read for anyone traveling to this area or for students of civilization and history. Or aspiring political scientists, for that matter.
]]> 7815
From one of America's iconic writers, a stunning book of electric honesty and passion. Joan Didion explores an intensely personal yet universal experience: a portrait of a marriage–and a life, in good times and bad–that will speak to anyone who has ever loved a husband or wife or child.

Several days before Christmas 2003, John Gregory Dunne and Joan Didion saw their only daughter, Quintana, fall ill with what seemed at first flu, then pneumonia, then complete septic shock. She was put into an induced coma and placed on life support. Days later–the night before New Year's Eve–the Dunnes were just sitting down to dinner after visiting the hospital when John Gregory Dunne suffered a massive and fatal coronary. In a second, this close, symbiotic partnership of forty years was over. Four weeks later, their daughter pulled through. Two months after that, arriving at LAX, she collapsed and underwent six hours of brain surgery at UCLA Medical Center to relieve a massive hematoma.

This powerful book is Didion's attempt to make sense of the "weeks and then months that cut loose any fixed idea I ever had about death, about illness . . . about marriage and children and memory . . . about the shallowness of sanity, about life itself."]]> 227 Joan Didion 1400078431 Heather 5 peace-corps, non-fiction
This book is a quick read, at least I thought so. Mostly I was buzzing through it so as to keep up with her dizzying thoughts, as she contemplates the sudden death of her husband and the life-threatening illness of their only daughter. What I found most captivating about this book was not so much its subject (death, grief, mourning), but its universality. That Didion was writing solely of her own personal experience and captured the sense of...ordinariness...in such seemingly disorderly proceedings made this book thought-provoking and real for me.]]> 3.94 2005
author: Joan Didion
name: Heather
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2005
rating: 5
read at: 2008/12/24
date added: 2008/12/24
shelves: peace-corps, non-fiction
review:
About two or three years ago, I saw Joan Didion being interviewed on "Charlie Rose," and my first impression of her at that time was that she looked extremely fragile - her skin paper-thin, and her frame petite and wispy. She was almost transparent. But her manner and personality came through in the interview. This was a tough cookie. Or, as she says in the beginning of her heart-wrenching memoir, a "cool customer."

This book is a quick read, at least I thought so. Mostly I was buzzing through it so as to keep up with her dizzying thoughts, as she contemplates the sudden death of her husband and the life-threatening illness of their only daughter. What I found most captivating about this book was not so much its subject (death, grief, mourning), but its universality. That Didion was writing solely of her own personal experience and captured the sense of...ordinariness...in such seemingly disorderly proceedings made this book thought-provoking and real for me.
]]> 37415 238 Zora Neale Hurston 0061120065 Heather 0 to-read 3.98 1937
author: Zora Neale Hurston
name: Heather
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1937
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2008/12/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 3 309 J.K. Rowling 0439554934 Heather 4 peace-corps, fiction 4.47 1997
author: J.K. Rowling
name: Heather
average rating: 4.47
book published: 1997
rating: 4
read at: 2008/11/01
date added: 2008/12/20
shelves: peace-corps, fiction
review:

]]> 6 734 J.K. Rowling 0439139597 Heather 5 peace-corps, fiction 4.56 2000
author: J.K. Rowling
name: Heather
average rating: 4.56
book published: 2000
rating: 5
read at: 2008/12/20
date added: 2008/12/20
shelves: peace-corps, fiction
review:

]]> 5 435 J.K. Rowling 043965548X Heather 5 peace-corps, fiction 4.57 1999
author: J.K. Rowling
name: Heather
average rating: 4.57
book published: 1999
rating: 5
read at: 2008/11/01
date added: 2008/12/20
shelves: peace-corps, fiction
review:

]]> 15881
And strike it does. For in Harry’s second year at Hogwarts, fresh torments and horrors arise, including an outrageously stuck-up new professor and a spirit who haunts the girls� bathroom. But then the real trouble begins � someone is turning Hogwarts students to stone. Could it be Draco Malfoy, a more poisonous rival than ever? Could it possibly be Hagrid, whose mysterious past is finally told? Or could it be the one everyone at Hogwarts most suspects� Harry Potter himself!]]> 352 J.K. Rowling Heather 3 peace-corps, fiction 4.42 1998
author: J.K. Rowling
name: Heather
average rating: 4.42
book published: 1998
rating: 3
read at: 2008/11/01
date added: 2008/12/20
shelves: peace-corps, fiction
review:

]]> 278227
In this provocative, acutely observed essay collection, renowned journalist, novelist, and non-fiction writer Slavenka Drakulic writes with wit and heart about her experiences under communism—as well as those of other Eastern Europeans, primarily women, who lived and suffered behind the Iron Curtain. A portrayal of the reality behind the rhetoric, her essays also chronicle the consequences of these regimes: The Berlin Wall may have fallen, but ideology cannot be dismantled so quickly, and a lifetime lived in fear cannot be so easily forgotten.

Many of the pieces focus on the intense connection Drakulic discovers between material things and the expression of one’s spirit, individuality, and femininity—an inevitable byproduct of a lifestyle that, through its rejection of capitalism and commoditization, ends up fetishizing both. She describes the moment one man was able, for the first time in his life, to eat a banana: He gobbled it down, skin and all, enthralled by its texture. Drakulic herself marvels at finding fresh strawberries in N.Y.C. in December, and the feel of the quality of the paper in an issue of Vogue.

As Drakulic delves into the particular hardships facing women—who are not merely the victims of sexism, but of regimes that prevent them from having even the most basic material means by which to express themselves—she describes the desperate lengths to which they would go to find cosmetics or clothes that made them feel feminine in a society where such a feeling was regarded as a bourgeois affectation. There is small room for privacy in communal housing, and the banishment of many time-saving devices, combined with a focus on manual labor, meant women were slaves to domestic responsibility in a way that their Western peers would find unfathomable. From this vantage point, she provides a pointed critique of Western feminism as a movement borne out of privilege.

How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed is a compelling, brilliant account of what it was really like to live under Communist rule and its inevitable repercussions.]]> 197 Slavenka Drakulić Heather 0 to-read, non-fiction 4.11 1991
author: Slavenka Drakulić
name: Heather
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1991
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2008/12/17
shelves: to-read, non-fiction
review:

]]> 14935 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780141439662

'The more I know of the world, the more am I convinced that I shall never see a man whom I can really love. I require so much!'

Marianne Dashwood wears her heart on her sleeve, and when she falls in love with the dashing but unsuitable John Willoughby she ignores her sister Elinor's warning that her impulsive behaviour leaves her open to gossip and innuendo. Meanwhile Elinor, always sensitive to social convention, is struggling to conceal her own romantic disappointment, even from those closest to her. Through their parallel experience of love—and its threatened loss—the sisters learn that sense must mix with sensibility if they are to find personal happiness in a society where status and money govern the rules of love.

This edition includes explanatory notes, textual variants between the first and second editions, and Tony Tanner's introduction to the original Penguin Classic edition.]]> 409 Jane Austen 0141439661 Heather 4 peace-corps, fiction 4.10 1811
author: Jane Austen
name: Heather
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1811
rating: 4
read at: 2008/12/01
date added: 2008/12/07
shelves: peace-corps, fiction
review:
I've read this book a few times before over the years, but it was refreshing to get through it again. I was struck this time by the fortitude of Elinor, the main character, and how constrained she is by the social etiquette of the era. I was also less irritated by the flightiness of Marianne, her younger sister. Sometimes I find it difficult to read Jane Austen in the context of her own time, and am frustrated by the choices the characters must make, only because they are hemmed in by their social status, class, income, etc etc. Not sure what was different this time, during this reading, but I had a better understanding for why the characters were behaving as they did. Perhaps I was finally able to take them at face value, in context for once. I think "S&S" is superior to "Pride and Prejudice" in the sense that Austen captures the agony of the boundaries of life for educated young women of the early 19th century without squeezing too many disbelieving (to the modern reader anyway) story lines.
]]> 19501
Around the time Elizabeth Gilbert turned thirty, she went through an early-onslaught midlife crisis. She had everything an educated, ambitious American woman was supposed to want—a husband, a house, a successful career. But instead of feeling happy and fulfilled, she was consumed with panic, grief, and confusion. She went through a divorce, a crushing depression, another failed love, and the eradication of everything she ever thought she was supposed to be.

To recover from all this, Gilbert took a radical step. In order to give herself the time and space to find out who she really was and what she really wanted, she got rid of her belongings, quit her job, and undertook a yearlong journey around the world—all alone. Eat, Pray, Love is the absorbing chronicle of that year. Her aim was to visit three places where she could examine one aspect of her own nature set against the backdrop of a culture that has traditionally done that one thing very well. In Rome, she studied the art of pleasure, learning to speak Italian and gaining the twenty-three happiest pounds of her life. India was for the art of devotion, and with the help of a native guru and a surprisingly wise cowboy from Texas, she embarked on four uninterrupted months of spiritual exploration. In Bali, she studied the art of balance between worldly enjoyment and divine transcendence. She became the pupil of an elderly medicine man and also fell in love the best way—unexpectedly.

An intensely articulate and moving memoir of self-discovery, Eat, Pray, Love is about what can happen when you claim responsibility for your own contentment and stop trying to live in imitation of society’s ideals. It is certain to touch anyone who has ever woken up to the unrelenting need for change.]]> 368 Elizabeth Gilbert 0143038419 Heather 3 peace-corps, non-fiction 3.64 2006
author: Elizabeth Gilbert
name: Heather
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2006
rating: 3
read at: 2008/11/01
date added: 2008/12/07
shelves: peace-corps, non-fiction
review:
Hmm. I was prepared to loathe this book, and perhaps by keeping my expectations low, I was pleasantly surprised. Though I found the first third ("Italy," or "How My Life Was More Hellish Than Yours") to be pretentious and self-serving, I really felt that I could see the transformation Gilbert makes through the rest of her year abroad. If you can get through her whining in the beginning, the sections in India and Indonesia more than make up for it (in my opinion). Also, she does come through with a few nuggets of wisdom in unexpected places - so skimming doesn't serve too well! (though it's tempting)
]]> 10847
A multilayered, bone-chilling narrative of messianic delusion, savage violence, polygamy, and unyielding faith. This is vintage Krakauer, an utterly compelling work of nonfiction that illuminates an otherwise confounding realm of human behavior.

Jon Krakauer’s literary reputation rests on insightful chronicles of lives conducted at the outer limits. In Under The Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith, he shifts his focus from extremes of physical adventure to extremes of religious belief within our own borders. At the core of his book is an appalling double murder committed by two Mormon Fundamentalist brothers, Ron and Dan Lafferty, who insist they received a revelation from God commanding them to kill their blameless victims. Beginning with a meticulously researched account of this "divinely inspired" crime, Krakauer constructs a multilayered, bone-chilling narrative of messianic delusion, savage violence, polygamy, and unyielding faith. Along the way, he uncovers a shadowy offshoot of America’s fastest-growing religion, and raises provocative questions about the nature of religious belief.

Krakauer takes readers inside isolated communities in the American West, Canada, and Mexico, where some forty-thousand Mormon Fundamentalists believe the mainstream Mormon Church went unforgivably astray when it renounced polygamy. Defying both civil authorities and the Mormon establishment in Salt Lake City, the leaders of these outlaw sects are zealots who answer only to God. Marrying prodigiously and with virtual impunity (the leader of the largest fundamentalist church took seventy-five "plural wives," several of whom were wed to him when they were fourteen or fifteen and he was in his eighties), fundamentalist prophets exercise absolute control over the lives of their followers, and preach that any day now the world will be swept clean in a hurricane of fire, sparing only their most obedient adherents.

Weaving the story of the Lafferty brothers and their fanatical brethren with a clear-eyed look at Mormonism’s violent past, Krakauer examines the underbelly of the most successful homegrown faith in the United States, and finds a distinctly American brand of religious extremism. The result is vintage Krakauer, an utterly compelling work of nonfiction that illuminates an otherwise confounding realm of human behavior.]]> 400 Jon Krakauer 0330419129 Heather 4 peace-corps, non-fiction
The device Krakauer employs here (spanning time and space in his examination of the modern and historical record of the church) serves the story well by building layer upon layer of history and analysis to help explain the ways that history, orthodoxy, mystery, and state secrecy managed to give birth to one of the fastest-growing modern religions, as well as these almost parallel-universe-esque sects that can produce so much violence and abuse.

My only qualm with the book is a natural consequence of its subject matter. The thorough examination of fundamentalism is fascinating - but does still give the impression, tangentially, that the Mormon church is not too far removed from the actions of a relative few. I did feel the Mormon church was "guilty by association" here, though the author does not intend to give that impression. ]]> 4.01 2003
author: Jon Krakauer
name: Heather
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2003
rating: 4
read at: 2008/10/01
date added: 2008/12/06
shelves: peace-corps, non-fiction
review:
I think I might finally have made peace with the writing style of Jon Krakauer. Perhaps this is due to the fact that this book is actually not about Jon Krakauer! He finally shows his stuff as a journalist in this captivating, in-depth examination of fundamentalist Mormon sects in the American West - and manages to shed some light on an oft-misunderstood modern religion.

The device Krakauer employs here (spanning time and space in his examination of the modern and historical record of the church) serves the story well by building layer upon layer of history and analysis to help explain the ways that history, orthodoxy, mystery, and state secrecy managed to give birth to one of the fastest-growing modern religions, as well as these almost parallel-universe-esque sects that can produce so much violence and abuse.

My only qualm with the book is a natural consequence of its subject matter. The thorough examination of fundamentalism is fascinating - but does still give the impression, tangentially, that the Mormon church is not too far removed from the actions of a relative few. I did feel the Mormon church was "guilty by association" here, though the author does not intend to give that impression.
]]> 256566 276 Jonathan Safran Foer 0060529709 Heather 5 peace-corps, fiction 3.91 2002
author: Jonathan Safran Foer
name: Heather
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2002
rating: 5
read at: 2008/12/06
date added: 2008/12/06
shelves: peace-corps, fiction
review:
I am not afraid to admit that I wept near the end of this book. I didn't even like it at first, but trust me, push through. read this book. I can't promise that you will also weep near the end, but you'll know what I mean when you get to the part. Heartbreaking and, well, yes, illuminating.
]]> 245579 A New York Times notable book and bestseller, this debut novel from Irish Times columnist Nuala O'Faolain takes on life and love with Dickensian flair and the striking intimacy that characterized her bestselling and acclaimed memoir, Are You Somebody?

Set in Ireland and spanning a century and a half, My Dream of You unfolds the compelling stories of two women and their quests for passion, connection, and fulfillment. A globetrotting Irish travel writer, Kathleen de Burca is used to living--and loving--on the run. On the brink of fifty, she decides to leave her job and rethink her life. Intrigued by a divorce case dating back to the days of the Potato Famine, she tries hand at writing about it. The case, called "The Talbot Affair," detailed the clandestine liaison between the wife of a British landlord and an Irish servant in Ireland in the 1850s. After a bitter thirty-year absence, Kathleen returns to Ireland, the land of her troubled childhood and turbulent heritage, in search of answers to her questions about desire and lasting love.]]> 529 Nuala O'Faolain 1573229083 Heather 0 to-read 3.58 2001
author: Nuala O'Faolain
name: Heather
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2001
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2008/11/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 394535 Blood Meridian is an epic novel of the violence and depravity that attended America's westward expansion, brilliantly subverting the conventions of the Western novel and the mythology of the Wild West. Based on historical events that took place on the Texas-Mexico border in the 1850s, it traces the fortunes of the Kid, a fourteen-year-old Tennesseean who stumbles into a nightmarish world where Indians are being murdered and the market for their scalps is thriving.]]> 351 Cormac McCarthy Heather 0 to-read 4.18 1985
author: Cormac McCarthy
name: Heather
average rating: 4.18
book published: 1985
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2008/11/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 1898
Into Thin Air is the definitive account of the deadliest season in the history of Everest by the acclaimed journalist and author of the bestseller Into the Wild. On assignment for Outside Magazine to report on the growing commercialization of the mountain, Krakauer, an accomplished climber, went to the Himalayas as a client of Rob Hall, the most respected high-altitude guide in the world. A rangy, thirty-five-year-old New Zealander, Hall had summited Everest four times between 1990 and 1995 and had led thirty-nine climbers to the top. Ascending the mountain in close proximity to Hall's team was a guided expedition led by Scott Fischer, a forty-year-old American with legendary strength and drive who had climbed the peak without supplemental oxygen in 1994. But neither Hall nor Fischer survived the rogue storm that struck in May 1996.

Krakauer examines what it is about Everest that has compelled so many people -- including himself -- to throw caution to the wind, ignore the concerns of loved ones, and willingly subject themselves to such risk, hardship, and expense. Written with emotional clarity and supported by his unimpeachable reporting, Krakauer's eyewitness account of what happened on the roof of the world is a singular achievement.]]> 368 Jon Krakauer Heather 4 peace-corps, non-fiction 4.24 1997
author: Jon Krakauer
name: Heather
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1997
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2008/10/16
shelves: peace-corps, non-fiction
review:

]]> 706668
These are hearing aids. They take the sounds of the world and amplify them." Josh Swiller recited this speech to himself on the day he arrived in Mununga, a dusty village on the shores of Lake Mweru. Deaf since a young age, Swiller spent his formative years in frustrated limbo on the sidelines of the hearing world, encouraged by his family to use lipreading and the strident approximations of hearing aids to blend in. It didn't work. So he decided to ditch the well-trodden path after college, setting out to find a place so far removed that his deafness would become irrelevant.

That place turned out to be Zambia, where Swiller worked as a Peace Corps volunteer for two years. There he would encounter a world where violence, disease, and poverty were the mundane facts of life. But despite the culture shock, Swiller finally commanded attention―everyone always listened carefully to the white man, even if they didn't always follow his instruction. Spending his days working in the health clinic with Augustine Jere, a chubby, world-weary chess aficionado and a steadfast friend, Swiller had finally found, he believed, a place where his deafness didn't interfere, a place he could call home. Until, that is, a nightmarish incident blasted away his newfound convictions.

At once a poignant account of friendship through adversity, a hilarious comedy of errors, and a gripping narrative of escalating violence, The Unheard is an unforgettable story from a noteworthy new talent.]]> 265 Josh Swiller 0805082107 Heather 5 peace-corps, non-fiction
I highly recommend this book to current and former PCVs, as well as anyone with an interest in the experiences of people with disabilities working and serving overseas. As Swiller shows, a disability can even be neutralized, ignored, overlooked, or disbelieved by all who know you - and that what matters in the end is who we are, and the intentions, however mistaken they may be, behind our actions that define our life experiences.]]> 3.89 2007
author: Josh Swiller
name: Heather
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2007
rating: 5
read at: 2008/10/14
date added: 2008/10/14
shelves: peace-corps, non-fiction
review:
What a powerful story. Josh Swiller relates his experience as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Zambia in the early 1990s, but he also happens to be deaf. I didn't know what to expect when I opened this book...but what I got was exceptional. Though our Peace Corps experiences have little in common - it is definitely hard to draw parallels between Swiller's African village life and mine in urban Eastern Europe - he really gets at the root of the volunteer experience. That no matter who you are, or who you were before you served, there is something profound to be learned from language misunderstandings, mistakes in judgment, and cultural differences...and that sometimes the lessons to be learned are necessary to put your experience in your own context - not in Peace Corps'.

I highly recommend this book to current and former PCVs, as well as anyone with an interest in the experiences of people with disabilities working and serving overseas. As Swiller shows, a disability can even be neutralized, ignored, overlooked, or disbelieved by all who know you - and that what matters in the end is who we are, and the intentions, however mistaken they may be, behind our actions that define our life experiences.
]]> 107430
She was seven before she ever saw another girl child. At eight, still too small to mount her horse unaided, she was galloping miles, alone, across Coorain, her parents' thirty thousand windswept, drought-haunted acres in the Australian outback, doing a "man's job" of helping herd the sheep because World War II had taken away the able-bodied men. She loved (and makes us see and feel) the vast unpeopled landscape, beautiful and hostile, whose uncertain weathers tormented the sheep ranchers with conflicting promises of riches and inescapable disaster. She adored (and makes us know) her large-visioned father and her strong, radiant mother, who had gone willingly with him into a pioneering life of loneliness and bone-breaking toil, who seemed miraculously to succeed in creating a warmly sheltering home in the harsh outback, and who, upon her husband's sudden death when Jill was ten, began to slide—bereft of the partnership of work and love that had so utterly fulfilled her—into depression and dependency.

We see Jill, staggered by the loss of her father, catapulted to what seemed another planet—the suburban Sydney of the 1950s and its crowded, noisy, cliquish school life. Then the heady excitement of the University, but with it a yet more demanding course of lessons—Jill embracing new ideas, new possibilities, while at the same time trying to be mother to her mother and resenting it, escaping into drink, pulling herself back, striking a balance. We see her slowly gaining strength, coming into her own emotionally and intellectually and beginning the joyous love affair that gave wings to her newfound self.

Worlds away from Coorain, in America, Jill Conway became a historian and the first woman president of Smith College. Her story of Coorain and the road from Coorain startles by its passion and evocative power, by its understanding of the ways in which a total, deep-rooted commitment to place—or to a dream—can at once liberate and imprison. It is a story of childhood as both Eden and anguish, and of growing up as a journey toward the difficult life of the free.]]> 238 Jill Ker Conway 0679724362 Heather 4 peace-corps, non-fiction
Read this book with an open mind though. It is not, as I thought it might be, a story only of life in the bush. It is the story of Ker Conway's life, during which she left the farm, Coorain, at the age of 11, returning intermittently until she left Australia at 25 to pursue studies in the U.S. I got bogged down a little in the middle, where she spent much of the pages ruminating on the existential nature of her undergraduate and familial experiences, placing her fitful and awkward adolescence into a framework perhaps larger, and more cumbersome, than was completely believable.

But then again, by the end I was reminded again of the genre - memoir. The very point of the memoir is to attach meaning and significance to one's life as it was lived, with the wisdom and knowledge of older age to lend those associations credence. On the whole, a wonderful book, well-written by an inspirational woman.]]> 4.02 1989
author: Jill Ker Conway
name: Heather
average rating: 4.02
book published: 1989
rating: 4
read at: 2008/09/30
date added: 2008/09/30
shelves: peace-corps, non-fiction
review:
This was a quick read, and a thought-provoking memoir. I was captivated from the first few pages- I could tell because I began reading but then had to put the book down for a few days to actually do some work, and found myself thinking about the author's transfixing descriptions of the Australian bush and her family's sheep farm there.

Read this book with an open mind though. It is not, as I thought it might be, a story only of life in the bush. It is the story of Ker Conway's life, during which she left the farm, Coorain, at the age of 11, returning intermittently until she left Australia at 25 to pursue studies in the U.S. I got bogged down a little in the middle, where she spent much of the pages ruminating on the existential nature of her undergraduate and familial experiences, placing her fitful and awkward adolescence into a framework perhaps larger, and more cumbersome, than was completely believable.

But then again, by the end I was reminded again of the genre - memoir. The very point of the memoir is to attach meaning and significance to one's life as it was lived, with the wisdom and knowledge of older age to lend those associations credence. On the whole, a wonderful book, well-written by an inspirational woman.
]]> 110737 There's an alternate cover edition here

Seabiscuit was one of the most electrifying and popular attractions in sports history and the single biggest newsmaker in the world in 1938, receiving more coverage than FDR, Hitler, or Mussolini. But his success was a surprise to the racing establishment, which had written off the crooked-legged racehorse with the sad tail. Three men changed Seabiscuit’s fortunes:

Charles Howard was a onetime bicycle repairman who introduced the automobile to the western United States and became an overnight millionaire. When he needed a trainer for his new racehorses, he hired Tom Smith, a mysterious mustang breaker from the Colorado plains. Smith urged Howard to buy Seabiscuit for a bargain-basement price, then hired as his jockey Red Pollard, a failed boxer who was blind in one eye, half-crippled, and prone to quoting passages from Ralph Waldo Emerson. Over four years, these unlikely partners survived a phenomenal run of bad fortune, conspiracy, and severe injury to transform Seabiscuit from a neurotic, pathologically indolent also-ran into an American sports icon.

Author Laura Hillenbrand brilliantly re-creates a universal underdog story, one that proves life is a horse race.


From the Hardcover edition.]]> 457 Laura Hillenbrand 0345465083 Heather 4 peace-corps, non-fiction 4.22 1999
author: Laura Hillenbrand
name: Heather
average rating: 4.22
book published: 1999
rating: 4
read at: 2008/09/23
date added: 2008/09/23
shelves: peace-corps, non-fiction
review:
I thoroughly enjoyed this book - I've never seen the movie (and don't plan to), but I couldn't put it down. A great true story, and told at a brisk pace, which is expected, given that the subject matter is a race horse (ha ha). I was especially struck by the facts concerning racing jockeys, and the extent to which they used to abuse their bodies in order to "make weight" to ride specific horses (perhaps they still do, but anyway these stories were from the 1920's and 30s). A striking story of an underdog, I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who has a free afternoon - it reads that easily.
]]> 9742 The Audacity of Hope is Barack Obama's call for a new kind of politics—a politics that builds upon those shared understandings that pull us together as Americans. Lucid in his vision of America's place in the world, refreshingly candid about his family life and his time in the Senate, Obama here sets out his political convictions and inspires us to trust in the dogged optimism that has long defined us and that is our best hope going forward.]]> 375 Barack Obama 0307237699 Heather 0 to-read 3.83 2006
author: Barack Obama
name: Heather
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2008/09/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 11206
From the author of How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents comes this tale of courage and sisterhood set in the Dominican Republic during the rise of the Trujillo dictatorship. A skillful blend of fact and fiction, In the Time of the Butterflies is inspired by the true story of the three Mirabal sisters who, in 1960, were murdered for their part in an underground plot to overthrow the government. Alvarez breathes life into these historical figures--known as "las mariposas," or "the butterflies," in the underground--as she imagines their teenage years, their gradual involvement with the revolution, and their terror as their dissentience is uncovered.

Alvarez's controlled writing perfectly captures the mounting tension as "the butterflies" near their horrific end. The novel begins with the recollections of Dede, the fourth and surviving sister, who fears abandoning her routines and her husband to join the movement. Alvarez also offers the perspectives of the other sisters: brave and outspoken Minerva, the family's political ringleader; pious Patria, who forsakes her faith to join her sisters after witnessing the atrocities of the tyranny; and the baby sister, sensitive Maria Teresa, who, in a series of diaries, chronicles her allegiance to Minerva and the physical and spiritual anguish of prison life.

In the Time of the Butterflies is an American Library Association Notable Book and a 1995 National Book Critics Circle Award nominee.]]> 324 Julia Alvarez 0452274427 Heather 3 peace-corps, fiction
The beauty and tragedy of this story comes from the "based on a true story" premise - the lives of 4 sisters who lived, and died, in the Dominican Republic during the time of the dictatorship of Trujillo. They risked their lives, and those of their families, to bring down a terrible, and deadly, regime.

As I said, I enjoyed the novel, and I'm all the more knowledgeable about the trials of Dominican people during the first half of the 20th century. However, the main plot device - the shifting narrative perspectives of the Mirabal sisters - feels dead at times, and the different voices all sound the same to me. Barbara Kingsolver captures that shift in perspective in "The Poisonwood Bible" to the point where I felt like I slipped inside the mind of the speaker during each chapter. I'm not sure what Alvarez could have done to bring out the differences between her characters - short of taking a lesson from Kingsolver - but nonetheless, the story is profound and heartbreaking.]]> 4.15 1994
author: Julia Alvarez
name: Heather
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1994
rating: 3
read at: 2008/08/20
date added: 2008/08/20
shelves: peace-corps, fiction
review:
THis is a lovely book that was recommended to me by a dear friend. I actually read it when I was in high school, and enjoyed it then, too.

The beauty and tragedy of this story comes from the "based on a true story" premise - the lives of 4 sisters who lived, and died, in the Dominican Republic during the time of the dictatorship of Trujillo. They risked their lives, and those of their families, to bring down a terrible, and deadly, regime.

As I said, I enjoyed the novel, and I'm all the more knowledgeable about the trials of Dominican people during the first half of the 20th century. However, the main plot device - the shifting narrative perspectives of the Mirabal sisters - feels dead at times, and the different voices all sound the same to me. Barbara Kingsolver captures that shift in perspective in "The Poisonwood Bible" to the point where I felt like I slipped inside the mind of the speaker during each chapter. I'm not sure what Alvarez could have done to bring out the differences between her characters - short of taking a lesson from Kingsolver - but nonetheless, the story is profound and heartbreaking.
]]> 2203
In this powerful, epic biography, David McCullough unfolds the adventurous life-journey of John Adams, the brilliant, fiercely independent, often irascible, always honest Yankee patriot -- "the colossus of independence," as Thomas Jefferson called him -- who spared nothing in his zeal for the American Revolution; who rose to become the second President of the United States and saved the country from blundering into an unnecessary war; who was learned beyond all but a few and regarded by some as "out of his senses"; and whose marriage to the wise and valiant Abigail Adams is one of the moving love stories in American history.

Like his masterly, Pulitzer Prize-winning biography Truman, David McCullough's John Adams has the sweep and vitality of a great novel. It is both a riveting portrait of an abundantly human man and a vivid evocation of his time, much of it drawn from an outstanding collection of Adams family letters and diaries. In particular, the more than one thousand surviving letters between John and Abigail Adams, nearly half of which have never been published, provide extraordinary access to their private lives and make it possible to know John Adams as no other major American of his founding era.

As he has with stunning effect in his previous books, McCullough tells the story from within -- from the point of view of the amazing eighteenth century and of those who, caught up in events, had no sure way of knowing how things would turn out. George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, John Jay, the British spy Edward Bancroft, Madame Lafayette and Jefferson's Paris "interest" Maria Cosway, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, the scandalmonger James Callender, Sally Hemings, John Marshall, Talleyrand, and Aaron Burr all figure in this panoramic chronicle, as does, importantly, John Quincy Adams, the adored son whom Adams would live to see become President.

Crucial to the story, as it was to history, is the relationship between Adams and Jefferson, born opposites -- one a Massachusetts farmer's son, the other a Virginia aristocrat and slaveholder, one short and stout, the other tall and spare. Adams embraced conflict; Jefferson avoided it. Adams had great humor; Jefferson, very little. But they were alike in their devotion to their country.

At first they were ardent co-revolutionaries, then fellow diplomats and close friends. With the advent of the two political parties, they became archrivals, even enemies, in the intense struggle for the presidency in 1800, perhaps the most vicious election in history. Then, amazingly, they became friends again, and ultimately, incredibly, they died on the same day -- their day of days -- July 4, in the year 1826.

Much about John Adams's life will come as a surprise to many readers. His courageous voyage on the frigate Boston in the winter of 1778 and his later trek over the Pyrenees are exploits that few would have dared and that few readers will ever forget.

It is a life encompassing a huge arc -- Adams lived longer than any president. The story ranges from the Boston Massacre to Philadelphia in 1776 to the Versailles of Louis XVI, from Spain to Amsterdam, from the Court of St. James's, where Adams was the first American to stand before King George III as a representative of the new nation, to the raw, half-finished Capital by the Potomac, where Adams was the first President to occupy the White House.

This is history on a grand scale -- a book about politics and war and social issues, but also about human nature, love, religious faith, virtue, ambition, friendship and betrayal, and the far-reaching consequences of noble ideas. Above all, John Adams is an enthralling, often surprising story of one of the most important and fascinating Americans who ever lived.]]> 751 David McCullough 0743223136 Heather 4 peace-corps, non-fiction
This book is weighty (clocking in at 650+ pages - and that's just the paperback), but believe me, there isn't a single wasted word. McCullough has a true gift for taking what must have been years of painstaking research, and turning it into a narrative of quick pace and incredible insight into one of the most famous but, historically, misunderstood of America's Founding Fathers, John Adams.

What left me giving this book only 4 stars was the feeling I had when I was finishing, that it was almost too sympathetic. I know the very nature of a biography gives the writer a bias in favor of their subject, but I hadn't expected to feel like the other figures - Jefferson, Franklin, et al - were severely under-represented, or worse, poorly represented. But, on plus side, now I want to read biographies of those two also, and see how Adams gets treated...then I might amend my rating, because I'm having a hard time seeing how Adams could be treated badly by history. He was an amazing thinker, writer, family man, and patriot. I guess I never really thought too much of the "Fathers" as real people. Now, in light of the human touch given to Adams by McCullough, I am even more impressed that our nation managed to survive its birth - and that without people like Adams, it may not have!

I recommend this book to anyone who has ever shied away from the biography genre, and to those with an even tiny interest in American History. A must-read!]]> 4.07 2001
author: David McCullough
name: Heather
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2001
rating: 4
read at: 2008/08/01
date added: 2008/08/17
shelves: peace-corps, non-fiction
review:
For the first time in my life, I could not put down a biography!

This book is weighty (clocking in at 650+ pages - and that's just the paperback), but believe me, there isn't a single wasted word. McCullough has a true gift for taking what must have been years of painstaking research, and turning it into a narrative of quick pace and incredible insight into one of the most famous but, historically, misunderstood of America's Founding Fathers, John Adams.

What left me giving this book only 4 stars was the feeling I had when I was finishing, that it was almost too sympathetic. I know the very nature of a biography gives the writer a bias in favor of their subject, but I hadn't expected to feel like the other figures - Jefferson, Franklin, et al - were severely under-represented, or worse, poorly represented. But, on plus side, now I want to read biographies of those two also, and see how Adams gets treated...then I might amend my rating, because I'm having a hard time seeing how Adams could be treated badly by history. He was an amazing thinker, writer, family man, and patriot. I guess I never really thought too much of the "Fathers" as real people. Now, in light of the human touch given to Adams by McCullough, I am even more impressed that our nation managed to survive its birth - and that without people like Adams, it may not have!

I recommend this book to anyone who has ever shied away from the biography genre, and to those with an even tiny interest in American History. A must-read!
]]> 76401 The New York Times called "Original, remarkable, and finally heartbreaking...Impossible to put down."

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee is Dee Brown's eloquent, fully documented account of the systematic destruction of the American Indian during the second half of the nineteenth century. A national bestseller in hardcover for more than a year after its initial publication, it has sold almost four million copies and has been translated into seventeen languages. For this elegant thirtieth-anniversary edition—published in both hardcover and paperback—Brown has contributed an incisive new preface.

Using council records, autobiographies, and firsthand descriptions, Brown allows the great chiefs and warriors of the Dakota, Ute, Sioux, Cheyenne, and other tribes to tell us in their own words of the battles, massacres, and broken treaties that finally left them demoralized and defeated. A unique and disturbing narrative told with force and clarity, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee changed forever our vision of how the West was really won.]]> 509 Dee Brown 0805066691 Heather 5 peace-corps, non-fiction
I read this book after "On the Rez" by Ian Frazier, and I would recommend reading both, in that order, actually. Frazier's modern account of life on the Oglala Sioux reservation is tragic enough, but to get the context of what's happening now, follow up with this book. You'll be haunted, but better educated about your own backyard.]]> 4.24 1970
author: Dee Brown
name: Heather
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1970
rating: 5
read at: 2008/07/20
date added: 2008/07/20
shelves: peace-corps, non-fiction
review:
This book is a must-read for anyone who wants to begin to understand the real history of the American West, and indeed America itself. Heartbreaking but movingly spare in its narrative, Brown relates the story of countless Native American tribes, and their downfall at the hands of an ignorant and unapologetic United States military (not to mention civilian settlers and miners, too).

I read this book after "On the Rez" by Ian Frazier, and I would recommend reading both, in that order, actually. Frazier's modern account of life on the Oglala Sioux reservation is tragic enough, but to get the context of what's happening now, follow up with this book. You'll be haunted, but better educated about your own backyard.
]]> 45033
Along with his longtime friend Le War Lance (whom he first wrote about in his 1989 bestseller, Great Plains ) and other Oglala companions, Frazier fully explores the rez as they visit friends and relatives, go to pow-wows and rodeos and package stores, and tinker with a variety of falling-apart cars. He takes us inside the world of the Sioux as few writers ever have, writing with much wit, compassion, and imagination. In the career of SuAnne Big Crow, for example, the most admired Oglala basketball player of all time, who died in a car accident in 1992, Frazier finds a contemporary reemergence of the death-defying, public-spirited Sioux hero who fights with grace and glory to save her followers.

On the Rez vividly portrays the survival, through toughness and humor, of a great people whose culture has helped to shape the American identity.]]> 336 Ian Frazier 0312278594 Heather 4 peace-corps, non-fiction
Frazier's connection to, and his quasi-obsession with, the Oglala Sioux, is recounted in this memoir-esque book. He builds the story off of his on-again/off-again friendship with Le, who lives in Pine Ridge on the Sioux reservation. The story is tragic at points, and Frazier does build in plenty of historical fact to support his own personal views on why the Oglala Sioux, and Native Americans at large, continue to be shrouded in poverty and woe. His own perspective, in this case, serves as a foil of sorts to the lives of the people he is documenting, and he never shies away from his whiteness, or his own more priveleged life in Montana and New York. By the end, I was captivated and angered - captivated by the spirit of the Sioux people, and angered by the endemic poverty they are saddled with. ]]> 3.87 2000
author: Ian Frazier
name: Heather
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2000
rating: 4
read at: 2008/06/01
date added: 2008/06/24
shelves: peace-corps, non-fiction
review:
The most compelling aspect of this book, for me, was the way the author inserted himself into the narrative. Sometimes when I am reading non-fiction, that kind of subjectivity bothers me, but in this case, I think the book wouldn't have been a success without it.

Frazier's connection to, and his quasi-obsession with, the Oglala Sioux, is recounted in this memoir-esque book. He builds the story off of his on-again/off-again friendship with Le, who lives in Pine Ridge on the Sioux reservation. The story is tragic at points, and Frazier does build in plenty of historical fact to support his own personal views on why the Oglala Sioux, and Native Americans at large, continue to be shrouded in poverty and woe. His own perspective, in this case, serves as a foil of sorts to the lives of the people he is documenting, and he never shies away from his whiteness, or his own more priveleged life in Montana and New York. By the end, I was captivated and angered - captivated by the spirit of the Sioux people, and angered by the endemic poverty they are saddled with.
]]> 14250 343 Barbara Kingsolver 0571171788 Heather 4 peace-corps, fiction 3.99 1993
author: Barbara Kingsolver
name: Heather
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1993
rating: 4
read at: 2008/04/01
date added: 2008/05/29
shelves: peace-corps, fiction
review:

]]> 30868 232 Barbara Kingsolver 0812474945 Heather 5 peace-corps, fiction 4.00 1988
author: Barbara Kingsolver
name: Heather
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1988
rating: 5
read at: 2008/04/01
date added: 2008/05/29
shelves: peace-corps, fiction
review:

]]> 4952 A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, What Is the What is the epic novel based on the life of Valentino Achak Deng who, along with thousands of other children —the so-called Lost Boys—was forced to leave his village in Sudan at the age of seven and trek hundreds of miles by foot, pursued by militias, government bombers, and wild animals, crossing the deserts of three countries to find freedom. When he finally is resettled in the United States, he finds a life full of promise, but also heartache and myriad new challenges. Moving, suspenseful, and unexpectedly funny, What Is the What is an astonishing novel that illuminates the lives of millions through one extraordinary man.
-back cover]]> 475 Dave Eggers 1932416641 Heather 5 peace-corps, fiction
This book is profound and tragic, and I want to keep calling it "angrifying" which I am pretty sure is not a word, though it should be. It brought the civil unrest and war of Sudan, and indirectly that of Darfur, into sharp focus for me, and made me want to DO something about what's happening there.

Most of all, by the conclusion, I felt close to the narrator, Valentino Achak Deng. Like I understood what he had been through, though there is really no earthly way I can ever or could ever know. I recommend this book to EVERYONE!]]> 4.14 2006
author: Dave Eggers
name: Heather
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2006
rating: 5
read at: 2008/05/01
date added: 2008/05/29
shelves: peace-corps, fiction
review:
This book totally shook me up, in every possible way a book should. It is beautiful. In its spare, narrative prose; in its structure (told in the present and in bursts of flashback by the narrator); and in the atrocities of war it brings, horrifyingly, to life for the reader and for the narrator/protagonist.

This book is profound and tragic, and I want to keep calling it "angrifying" which I am pretty sure is not a word, though it should be. It brought the civil unrest and war of Sudan, and indirectly that of Darfur, into sharp focus for me, and made me want to DO something about what's happening there.

Most of all, by the conclusion, I felt close to the narrator, Valentino Achak Deng. Like I understood what he had been through, though there is really no earthly way I can ever or could ever know. I recommend this book to EVERYONE!
]]> 24687 Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight, Alexandra Fuller remembers her African childhood with candor and sensitivity. Though it is a diary of an unruly life in an often inhospitable place, it is suffused with Fuller’s endearing ability to find laughter, even when there is little to celebrate. Fuller’s debut is unsentimental and unflinching but always captivating. In wry and sometimes hilarious prose, she stares down disaster and looks back with rage and love at the life of an extraordinary family in an extraordinary time.]]> 315 Alexandra Fuller Heather 4 peace-corps, non-fiction 3.96 2001
author: Alexandra Fuller
name: Heather
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2001
rating: 4
read at: 2008/05/08
date added: 2008/05/08
shelves: peace-corps, non-fiction
review:
This book was absolutely lovely, mostly in its complete honesty in the perspective of the author, the daughter of white farmers living in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), Malawi, and Zambia in the 1960s to 1990s. Her parents are unabashedly racist (and alcholic to boot), and she effectively describes her view of their harsh life (though not nearly as harsh as those of the Africans they lived amongst) without mercy and without forgiveness, apology, or shame. A difficult feat, considering all they they went through.
]]> 36072 372 Stephen R. Covey 0743269519 Heather 2 non-fiction 4.16 1989
author: Stephen R. Covey
name: Heather
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1989
rating: 2
read at: 2008/05/06
date added: 2008/05/06
shelves: non-fiction
review:

]]> 1052644 243 Colm TĂłibĂ­n 0330321250 Heather 0 to-read 3.82 1992
author: Colm TĂłibĂ­n
name: Heather
average rating: 3.82
book published: 1992
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2008/05/04
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 1189335
Why, Horwitz asks, do we remember history the way we do? During his long and strange journey, from Indian sweat lodges to Columbus' crypt, he exposes the revealing gap between what we enshrine and what we forget about our past. A Voyage Long and Strange is a gripping historical adventure that illuminates not only America's early European history, but also the memory and myths that give the past power in the present day.]]> 320 Tony Horwitz 0719566355 Heather 0 to-read 3.88 2008
author: Tony Horwitz
name: Heather
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2008/04/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 6976 An alternate cover edition exists here.

Sue Monk Kidd's phenomenal debut, The Secret Life of Bees, became a runaway bestseller that is still on the New York Times bestseller list more than two years after its paperback publication. Now, in her luminous new novel, Kidd has woven a transcendent tale that will thrill her legion of fans. Telling the story of Jessie Sullivan -- a love story between a woman and a monk, a woman and her husband, and ultimately a woman and her own soul -- Kidd charts a journey of awakening and self-discovery illuminated with a brilliance that only a writer of her ability could conjure.]]> 368 Sue Monk Kidd 0143036696 Heather 2 peace-corps, fiction 3.19 2004
author: Sue Monk Kidd
name: Heather
average rating: 3.19
book published: 2004
rating: 2
read at: 2008/04/26
date added: 2008/04/26
shelves: peace-corps, fiction
review:
This book was enjoyable, but forgettable. A nice distraction on a rainy day. The story lacked any real coherence, and I didn't really feel anything for any of the main characters. If this was lying on your bedside table and you had a few spare hours, I would say go for it. But I wouldn't go out and buy a copy.
]]> 40051
Evening unfolds in the rushlight of that memory, as Ann relives those three vivid days on the New England coast, with motorboats buzzing and bands playing in the night, and the devastating tragedy that followed a spectacular wedding. Here, in the surge of hope and possibility that coursed through her at twenty-five--in a singular time of complete surrender--Ann discovers the highest point of her life.]]> 288 Susan Minot 0375700269 Heather 4 peace-corps 3.39 1998
author: Susan Minot
name: Heather
average rating: 3.39
book published: 1998
rating: 4
read at: 2008/04/01
date added: 2008/04/26
shelves: peace-corps
review:
This book was captivating...beautifully written, it tells the story of a short, but ultimately significant, romance between two acquaintances at a mutual friend's wedding in 1954. The magic of this book comes not from its relatively familiar plot thread, but in its construction. The story of the romance in question is told in a most unusual flashback style, as the female protagonist lays on her deathbed, remembering this one weekend with more vividness than ever before. I haven't seen the film, but I thoroughly enjoyed the book.
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