Book 48: The Great Gatsby

Like many of you, I read this in high school, lo these many, many years ago. I remembered only one thing about it, and that was something about Robert Redford and Mia Farrow. Oh wait . . . .




Well, I loved it. It was so well-written: so spare, yet so descriptive! I listened to the audio book, and it was just a delight to listen to.

And now I feel that education is wasted on the young. I should probably re-read everything I read in my youth.

Book 47: Wild: Lost and Found on the Pacific Coast Trail

I heard just a snippet of this author being interviewed on NPR and thought the book sounded interesting enough to try. Apparently, if you want me to read your book, all you have to do is be interviewed on NPR. When I started it, I thought I was reading a West-Coast, female-hiker version of Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods.



Well, I was wrong. The book really turned out to be mostly about an internal journey that is very difficult to describe. I came to understand a bit why the author might have done some of the unfathomable (from my perspective) things she had done prior to starting her trek, and that's the best kind of reading experience there is, I think: beginning to understand someone who is very different from you.

Book 46: People of the Book

It took me a little while to get into this one, but once I did, I was hooked.



People of the Book is historical fiction about the creation and survival of the Sarajevo Haggadah, the oldest surviving text of the story of the Passover. It is a beautiful illuminated manuscript which originated in Spain in the 15th century. Here is an image of one of the illuminated pages:



I listened to the audio book of this one, and as the story fell into place, there were times that my mouth dropped open in amazement. Geraldine Brooks tells beautiful stories in a wonderfully understated way.

Book 45: The Secret Piano

This book is about a young musician who came of age during the Cultural Revolution.



I've read quite a few books about this time in Chinese history. Each person would have had a different experience during the Cultural Revolution, and this was an interesting one. It emphasized the feeling of having lost years and belonging to a lost generation.

The book piqued my interest in Bach's Goldberg Variations. I'm off to listen to her recording.

Book 44: Freeing Your Child from Anxiety

How about freeing me from anxiety?



This book was great. It helped me understand my own inclinations toward anxiety and how to combat them. I wish very much that my own parents had had a book like this when I was a kid.

Book 43: Caleb's Crossing

Oh, what a delight.



This was another audio book and the voice talent was perfect for the story. The language was one of the best aspects of the book for me, and the woman who read for the audio book really brought the language to life. Colonial language never sounded so good!

Book 42: Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

We have a winner, folks--for the worst book of 2012 so far!



This book raised my ire from the second chapter in, when a glaring anachronism made its appearance (I have heard it was fixed in later editions, though). The characters did things that didn't make sense, too much was explained and reexplained, and overall, the writing wasn't at all to my taste. There were far, far too many similes. On the bright side, the narration of the audio book was very good.

Book 41: When Women Were Birds

This book was one of the recommendations on Radio West's summer book show. Shame on me, I've never read any of Terry Tempest Williams' work before.



The book revolves around Terry's mother's journals, which she leaves to Terry when she dies. But they are all blank. What was her mother saying with these empty journals, and why did she leave them to her daughter?

I really loved almost everything about this book.