Sara Martin
This was an odd book and I never quite knew where it was going.
It takes place in 1859. Anna, a very devout 11 year old Catholic, is starving herself and her family and neighbors believe she is a saint and can perform miracles. A very practical Protestant nurse, trained by Miss Nightingale herself, is sent to watch over her to see if she is somehow sneaking food.
As I'm reading this I'm wondering if the outcome of the book will be supernatural or a hoax or something else. I wasn't quite expecting the ending, which is good. I stayed up until 3:00 AM to finish this. I had to know!
It was an easy read, not too terribly deep, but entertaining.
Wow, is this what women are reading right now? I bought this set at the library expecting some fluffy chick lit about vampires and instead I got - well, THAT - but also a lot of sex. Page after page of silly lovemaking scenes with a too gorgeous vampire who's way too possessive.
I liked Jessica, the turnblood. There were funny parts but really this entire book was just a pretence. They only needed a thin plot to divide the many sessions where they keep “doing it”.
I got annoyed. I rolled my eyes. And I read the entire book. I own this series now (sigh) so might as well make the most of it.
If you're into erotica and vampires, this might be the book for you. I was bummed that its not more about her parenting. I inferred that from the title. Sigh.
Well, I enjoyed the author's note. That was entertaining. I read he does that at the end of all of his books.
As for the book, itself, I'm not too sure. What I liked: The idea of the story - Death as a real man, unwittingly thrust into the role, and having to figure it out as he went. I liked Mortis the horse/limousine. I liked Satan advertising on billboards that Hell is actually a Fun place to be! I was a big fan of Dead Like Me and was so bummed when they canceled that series. There were actually quite a few clever ideas in the story line of On a Pale Horse.
What I didn't like: The sexism, the writing of the female characters. Very one-sided and that side was male. I rolled my eyes quite a bit but I found myself wondering if he was deliberately doing this. The book is early eighties and yes, we've come a long ways (in some respects) from then. I have this issue whenever I read older sci-fi books as that genre was dominated by male authors for so long. So maybe a lot of this was Piers Anthony being tongue-in-cheek, but it was enough to make me decide not to pursue the series. It felt a little unsettling. Women are more than their bodies, after all.
So, basically, a great story idea that needed help with the dialog, especially with the female characters. We need an updated version of this with 2017 sensibilities!
I enjoyed this book by Mr. Bourdain. I like his attitude.
This is an entirely different world from what I live in. I've never worked in the food service industry, is it still like this nowadays? A world where you can never be sued for sexual harassment and foul language? I have a boring office job and this is so foreign to me.
Because this is so far removed from my own experiences of the world - heck, I've never even been to New York and seldom eat at fancy restaurants - I liked it. It was fun. And eye opening.
Another Honey and Clover finished. I watched the movie from 2006 right before I read this one. I had good timing, the movie pretty much stops at the end of Volume 7. (It's not that good, if you're interested.) I liked this storyline but I get a little frustrated with the love triangles. How can you love a guy for six years that will never love you back? Oh, Yamada-san, please. Anyway, it's interesting seeing everyone changing but I'm getting impatient for everyone to end up in a REAL relationship!
It's been ages since I've read volume 10. I've forgotten so much, but a lot of it came back to me. At times this one was confusing but it was also pretty good. This is so complicated, I've forgotten exactly why Hachi/Nana is acting so oddly when she is just about to see the group.
The dorm thing is weird. The whole music scene and why anyone cares about the relationship between Trapnest and Blast has always had me puzzled.
Still, I like the characters. They're my friends.
Every Honey and Clover volume makes me so emotional! It's amazing what I feel for these characters. I ordered the live-action movie from the library, hope it is as good as the Nana movie was.
Takemoto spends a good part of the book riding his bike to the tip of Japan. Everyone thinks he's finding himself but he feels he's just being himself, riding without stopping, wondering about the girl he leaves behind. As for the girl - wow, that's an emotional end of the volume with Haguchan. Gotta keep reading!
Morita is being the same ah* buddy he always is. The whole Matsuma/Rika/Mayama thing is still going on. . .
The festival at the end sounded like a lot of fun, like the Taste of Colorado. I really crave Japanese food after reading mangas like this.
Sebastian, of course, deserves 5 stars. Always. Just for standing there, looking good.
As for this storyline, mmm, not so much.
Part of the problem is that it has been so long since I read volume 4, I couldn't really remember these characters very well. The curry contest was fun, but it seemed a little too “light”. I would have rather had something a bit darker for plot. I found the Indian guests getting a bit tiresome after a while.
Nice to get a little bit of background on the inept servants. I've been wondering why they don't just fire them.
I received a copy of this book from my workplace because we are getting bought out by another company. I attended a Working Through Transition class and all of the attendees received a copy of this book.
This book is actually a guide for management to lead their employees through a successful transition. There is an ending, a neutral zone, and a new beginning.
This book is not exactly geared for an employee finding out they are getting laid off.
I will say it appears my company is doing a good job of managing this transition, at least as far as the suggestions and guidelines of this book. I found it interesting about the life cycle of organizations. It was also interesting to see what you should and should not do during a transition time. I think this book could be a valuable tool for managers. It wasn't, however, terribly meaningful to me in my particular situation.
This isn't a book about how to cope with the upcoming stress of job loss that is looming on the horizon. I've been there, I've done that. It isn't pretty. (At least this time, I don't think it will be worse.) It's fine to talk about not being able to let go of something good, trying to find a place in a confusing neutral zone, and embracing something new, but my mortgage is going to need paid. My work place might have done better by handing out copies of managing stress related to a job loss, including financial stress. This is not the fault of this book, however. (I tried to get something meaningful out of it since I had to read it, but unfortunately a sense of cynicism caused me to make sarcastic comments in the margins.)
There are several typos in this book in the form of missing words which was rather irritating. One Latin quote did not make sense to me because of the lack of the “being verb”. I don't speak Latin, but something seemed off. “Omnia uno tempore agenda” looked like it would be translated “Everything one time done”. The quote is actually “Omnia uno tempore erant agenda” - “Everything had to be done at once”. Better proofreading would have helped.
This isn't necessarily a book I would normally read, but the story intrigued me. A young woman is killed in a small town in Kansas. No one knows who she is and she is buried in an unmarked grave. A cult of the virgin grows up around her resting place and miracles are attributed to her.
Actually, as the story progresses, you realize quite a few people know who she is. And they're not talking.
This is also the story of a lost love between teenagers, of family relationships, of bad kids, good kids, and their parents. I was personally more interested in the mystery than the romances.
This story about a young Bible salesman accidentally getting involved in an organized crime ring was supposed to be laugh-out-loud funny, judging by the back cover and all the many reviews in the opening pages.
It was amusing at times, but I never laughed out loud. The story was good, especially with the flashbacks of Henry's life so you learned how Henry became Henry. The story takes place in North Carolina between 1930 - 1951. Henry has been raised a fundamentalist Christian and if you have ever found yourself in that situation, you understand what this boy is going through. All through this novel he keeps reading passages in the Bible, trying to reconcile them with other passages in the Bible and what he has been taught by those around him. One of the other characters I liked in this book was Uncle Jack. He was a bit irreligious and not quite like the other grown ups in Henry's world.
One day when he is hitching a ride, a car thief picks him up. That begins the saga of stealing cars (and doing other assorted crimes). Henry may be innocent but he's definitely not stupid. Things start to seem a little odd to him at some point, leading to the eventual conclusion of this novel.
A quick, easy read.
More pictures! Better pictures! And a map of Honduras and T1! Or is that still top secret??
I like the Pendergast stories so I wanted to check out this non-fiction book. It's a dual read with Mike. We've both been enjoying it.
I like reading about American archaeology and I've mainly read about Mayan ruins, so this was something different. There's some filler here about all the previous hunts for this city, all unsuccessful. I didn't mind the background stories but was ready to get into the new expedition.
Yeh, I don't think I'm ready for the jungle! Snakes, biting bugs, rain, mud, more rain, more mud, more bugs. Unlike some other reviewers, I appreciate all the detail the author gave us. Very cool that they found this city. I am a bit curious about the controversy that erupted about this find, though. I may look that up. Its not an edge of your seat kind of thriller, but interesting enough that I kept turning the pages.
At the end, the author talks about the tropical parasite the group became infected with and it's a major part of this book, probably because it became a major part of his life. He discusses global warming, history, politics, you name it. It felt unfinished but it was the story of HIS journey to find the city.
At the end, I wondered where the excavation is at this point. I'd like to spend some time learning more about it. Also of note, Douglas Preston always refers to himself as a journalist for the New Yorker and National Geographic, not a novelist. I only thought he wrote fiction!
Recommended if you like this type of story. Lots of details.
“But what is sane? Especially here in ‘our own country' - in this doomstruck era of Nixon. We are all wired into a survival trip now.”
This is one of those books that just gets in your head. Pretty soon you're dreaming it. You're dreaming you're Duke, sneaking through the lobby in your funky hat, trying to avoid all the lizard people, paranoia sneaking up on you and overtaking you and -
There's a few books like that out there for me. Books like On the Road, Clockwork Orange, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. You're part of the gang - you're THERE.
I've seen two movies based on this book so I kinda knew what to expect, but I still felt a bit “wowed”. At what point is this exaggeration? My god, did this REALLY happen? It's simply insane, but you probably already knew that.
And the world in 1971! Yes, its obvious HT hates Nixon. The idealism of the previous decade gone for, as he insightfully points out, there was no one there at the light at the end of the tunnel, no mystic force for your higher consciousness to be absorbed into. Not to mention Nixon got elected and downers were the drug of choice.
“A very painful experience in every way, a proper end to the sixties: Tim Leary a prisoner of Eldridge Cleaver in Algeria, both Kennedys murdered by mutants. . . and finally Cassius/Ali belted incredibly off his pedestal. . . .Joe Frazier, like Nixon, had finally prevailed for reasons that people like me refused to understand - at least not out loud.”
So, aside from my utter fascination with a drug culture I know nothing about (but hopefully less clueless than the cops at the convention) was a portrait of the world in 1971. Sure, there was corruption but it was also a world without airport security, without metal detectors, without instant ways to check ID, but with cops that would pull you over, pour out your beer, and send you to a rest stop to sleep it off.
To hell with the American Dream. Yet through these pages I glimpsed a freedom lost for safety gained and that wasn't even the point of the book; that's a retrospective analogy.
Scary, horrifying, funny, insightful, and still somehow apropos of America 2017.
I finished Silence today and honestly, I don't know quite what to think. I'm not sure I'm wowed or blown away with this novel. I did find it interesting but I was so detached from the action and the characters that I don't feel moved. I think that I should be moved. What did Scorsese read in this novel that I missed? Is it perhaps because I am not Catholic? It is a universal novel and definitely doesn't have to be read or comprehended by people of a certain religion.
I read this because after seeing the trailers for this movie I was very intrigued but didn't think I could sit through 2 hours of torture scenes. The book is not filled with torture scenes. The book is primarily psychological and takes place in the mind of the priest, Father Rodrigues. I was very curious to see what he would do and feel at the end of the book.
I read the foreword by Scorsese and the preface by the translator after I had finished the novel. I had assumed the book was based upon historical incidents and it was. It was in the preface that I found out that Endo was Catholic and he wrestled with the dichotomy of being both Japanese and Roman Catholic. Endo had talked about the swamp that was Japan and why it was so hard for a foreign religion to take root.
My feelings as I read the book were one of sadness for the priests and the Christians but a detachment from their plight. That may have been because I am reading in English what was originally written in Japanese. This book was really showcasing a “damned if you do, damned if you don't” scenario. As far as the matter of faith and belief, Endo does not present clear answers; instead, he asks questions in the form of his narration. The outcome is realistic. Unfortunately, I wasn't deeply moved by the plight of the priest and the Christians. I would have liked to have had some Japanese characters (or some Portuguese characters for that matter) that I could empathize with but instead I ended up with Kichijiro. I felt that maybe the Europeans should leave Japan. Maybe I just didn't understand.
This was a very good book about this history of food manufacturing in NYC. We start from the Dutch in the 17th century down to the last few years. The pattern: local brew and bread, meat markets and dairies. Then - big corporations swoop in and consolidate and relocate. Finally, artisanal breads, craft brews, one last remaining local dairy, organic nut milks.
As far as sanitary and safe conditions - yuk. Not until modern times do the factories seem relatively safe to work in and the food relatively safe to eat. I'm glad I'm not living and eating in 19th century New York City, at least not being poor and eating there. I imagine I'd have a good resistance to nasty bacteria, though.
It is a shame the author died before this book could be printed. A lot of research went into this book. I always enjoy histories of food and food processing and this was an entertaining read during my lunch break every day.
This book was quite political. I really had no idea what to expect. I liked it. I agreed with quite a bit. I didn't always understand the British slang but I could have googled it if I hadn't been so lazy! Although I liked this book, I really need a break from politics - for now.
I do feel bad that I know so little about British politics and Caitlin knows so much about ours. I don't deliberately set out to be ignorant, but British politics seldom come up in my circle so I would have to actively search it out online. The Graham Norton show probably doesn't count. . .
Well, review to follow. I just wrote one, hit save, then the review deleted. Dang.
(update Oct 2017) I forgot I was supposed to finish this review. That was dispiriting about losing it. I remember very little. I liked it but I didn't love it. These are good books but never quite attain to great. I love the detective. I wish the cases were shorter and sweeter and not so much tramping through the forest with magical creatures.
I had been wanting to read this book for quite some time. Finally, I did it! Loved this story. It was sad, it was happy, it was interesting. I liked how the author got into the dinosaur's brain like he did. I became quite fond of Raptor Red. I did find the story ended somewhat abruptly, though. I could have used another chapter. I enjoyed the killing, the playing, the mating, the natural disasters. It was quite an adventurous life.
I've had pet lizards before and I've often wondered what a dinosaur society would be like, even though I know that now we think they were not cold-blooded and had some feathers.
I would be interested in reading more books along these lines, if anyone knows of any.
I found this in the free bin at 2nd and Charles last year and I finally made something from it - Stir-fried Walnut Chicken. It was very good! There's other recipes in here I want to try, too.
Baked Southern Grits
Zesty Hamburger Soup
Sausage Lentil Soup
Steamed Kale
Texas Barley Salad
I'm not much for artificial sweeteners so not really thinking of diet soda as a “free food” as the intro said. Also, why are tomatoes and pickles unlimited free food but salsa is limited to 1/4 cup per day? (Seriously, why even bother?) and why limit relish?
Anyway, there's a 6 week diet plan in here. Sounds good, but how can I get up every morning and fix eggs or pancakes or frittatas or enchiladas then go to work? And make all those lunches at home to eat at work like pizza, salmon, and stew? Then come home from work and make all those home cooked meals? I decided that's the rich housewife diet. I'm sticking to cereal and Lean Cuisine.
Some good stuff in here, though not a health food recipe book.
This is an old cookbook I acquired at a library sale. No pictures and some of the recipes are complicated.
That being said, I've made several recipes and they're great
Georgia Peanut Salad Dressing (sans garlic but yum!)
Lentil Ragout (a little bland and underdone at 8500 feet)
Mussels and Shrimp with Orzo (sans mussels but with the chorizo - wow!)
Quinoa Pilaf with Red and Yellow Peppers (sans peppers but with roasted corn and celery)
I will be making more recipes from this book!
I really enjoyed this book, but as always, I wonder why I even eat chicken when I get to the chapters on how they are raised. It brought up visions of Food, Inc.
Lots of good stuff in here (if you're inclined to consider odd facts about animals good stuff). There is so much trivia in this book. I learned why chicken wasn't a popular meat until recently (Hey! It's not real food for real men!) and I learned about the modern development of the chicken industry. I actually had a hard time putting this down but ended up not being able to do a marathon read because of other (sigh) obligations.
The author, Evelyn Rude, has a great sense to humor, also. This is not a dry read by any means.
A real quick read - this book is for young people. I didn't expect it to be for quite that young of an age - the short sentences and repetitiveness were a little hard to get used to. I will say I learned some things I didn't know, though, about how the parties had interacted with each other and with the people in times past.
My knowledge of American history is not that good so I can use all the help I can get. (I can blame my school but in reality, I could have pursued this subject on my own after I graduated but didn't.) I'm on to more books about the political parties now.
I had watched the movie earlier this year and I read the book for my book group. It wasn't bad. I do think the book was better than the movie (no surprise) and also a bit different than the movie.
I felt the movie was a bit “meh” with some very obvious situations regarding the aliens. I thought it might have been geared for younger teens. The book states some facts earlier than the movie did but since these situations were so obvious it made more sense in the book that we as readers know this.
The book picked up more steam toward the end and got more interesting. I do like the main characters which is always good. I may or may not read the second book. I am a bit curious to see what happens and I don't think another movie is in the works so I may do that within the year. We'll see.
I've never given the metric system much thought. It's something I learned in the 70's, back when we were sure the U.S. was going to convert by the end of the decade. It seemed easier to learn and at that time I probably could have handled the change just fine.
The conversion never really happened, not in my day to day life. I never saw kilometers on the road signs (unless I was close to the border) and gradually the cars stopped listing how many kilometers per hour you were driving and just stuck to miles. I could read the milliliters on the bottles at the grocery store which I assumed was for international trade. I knew you needed a set of metric wrenches to work on cars which might be all or partially metric.
And, of course, I remember the wrecked rocket ship on Mars, which was the result of the space program using both metric and US customary measures. (“Oh, you meant miles! Ooooh. . . .”) Yeh, heads had to have rolled because of that.
When I saw this book I thought it would be interesting to find out just why the United States refused to go metric. I'm still not completely sure. It sounds like we resisted. We didn't compromise an inch! Well, we actually did, though not the actual “inch”. The United States went metric in some areas and in others, it just didn't matter. We don't mind a 750 ml bottle of wine or whiskey (though I still hear people say “a fifth of whiskey” which is bizarre to me - 757.08 ml or 1/5 of a liquid gallon) but apparently the cost of converting all the gas pumps to metric during the fuel crisis did not go over well. I don't remember the protests. I learned my math at school and when nothing happened - well, I moved on. (Now, if I had to learn my temperature in Celsius or my mileage in kilometers, I would struggle. I'd be forever converting in my head like a foreign language.)
The U.S., being isolated from Europe and not as much involved in most of the foreign wars after the push for decimalization and the metric system in the late 1700's did not have as pressing of a need for the metric system in people's daily lives. (We weren't becoming members of the EU.) The computer age made so much of the math easier, too.
I learned some very interesting things. A mile is 5,280 feet because a mile is not really related to the foot. A mile is 8 furlongs and is related to the acre and the plowing of land. There was a movement to change the calendar so all the months were fairly equal and the same date would fall on the same day of the week in every month and year. That didn't die out until 1955. (That would be horribly hard to learn and adjust to.) Decimalization is fairly new, as far as how we use it and discuss it. I can't imagine a time when people would routinely say “one and half pounds” and not think of it as 1 point 5 pounds. There were lots of other interesting tidbits.
I'm almost embarrassed I had never really thought about most of this! It was a good choice for a non-fiction book.