Book report
Sep. 26th, 2010 03:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stormkeeper_lovedorisHere's the latest bunch of books I read:
Twenties Girl by Sophie Kinsella – A coworker lent me this audio book. I looked at the cover. A white background, the title written in cursive, a drawing of a slim young woman – oh no, chick lit! Up to this point, I’ve never been able to finish a chick lit book. I tried twice, with “Bridget Jones’ Diary” and “Good in Bed”, but neither book interested me. However my partner Doris listened to this audio book first and she told me it wasn’t bad and is worth a listen given that there’s not much else to do in the car – turns out, she was right. It tells the story of Lara Linton who is obsessing over a guy who dumped her, and is losing all her money in a failed business that she co-founded with a friend when the ghost of her Great Aunt comes to her. The voice actor who read this CD was fantastic. She handled a bunch of different accents and voices perfectly. The male lead in this novel was a bit too good to be true; I wonder if you see that a lot in chick lit. So hey – kudos to me for finishing a type of book that normally I wouldn’t pick up! Grade: C+
Witnessing History by Jennifer Zeng -- Zeng was born in China in the 60’s, and as an adult she discovered a religion called Falun Gong. She felt that the religion changed her life and even helped her with numerous medical issues. But the Chinese government soon began a crackdown on all practitioners of this religion (despite the fact that, as Zeng describes it, it’s a peaceful religion that never attacked the Chinese government or anyone else for that matter). Zeng tells us that she – and thousands of other believers – were placed in Chinese “re-education” camps. I’ve read a lot about China. The way they treat their citizens is horrifying. I thought I was kind of numb to it by now. But the conditions that Zeng describes pretty much shocked and nauseated me all over again. I won’t go into a lot detail here except to say that they experienced torture: beatings, electric shocks, being forced to remain squatting for sixteen hours at a time (sixteen!), sleep deprivation, bathroom deprivation, constant manual labor, mental torture, and every other horror you can imagine. I must add that these prison sentences occurred recently – within the last 10 years. I wish someday China would experience sanctions on the international scene for how it treats its people but I guess greed has won out (why exactly was China allowed to host an Olympics?) This book nudged me back over to Amnesty International’s site to write a few letters. Grade: B
More books behind the cut!
A Stronger Kinship by Anna-Lisa Cox – Sometimes history can be fascinating. This well-researched book documents the true story of a town in Michigan that – although founded before the Civil War – had Black and White Americans living, working, and intermarrying together. It wasn’t a utopia but it was very unique in this regard. The author definitely did her research and although the book was a bit dry at times, it was worth a read. Grade: B-
Cook Food by Lisa Jervis – Even I don’t normally read cook books cover to cover, but: a) this book is really short, b) it’s more than a cook book. Basically, Jervis (co-founder and former editor of my favorite magazine Bitch) shares how she goes about eating meals that are locally grown, simple, healthy, easy on the budget, and animal-friendly. It was a good reminder for me that avoiding the bad foods (you know the ones: heavily processed, came in a box, you had to unwrap plastic to get to it, sugar-filled, etc, etc) not only is better for me and the planet but is delicious and do-able. I can’t wait to try more of the recipes in here! The first one I made (today) was good. Grade: A
Doing Sixty and Seventy by Gloria Steinem – This is a short book by the legendary feminist writer and activist. I’ve enjoyed everything of hers that I’ve read. She always has fresh and new ideas, and always helps me to see things in a different light. This starts out being a book on aging, but it ends up being a book on all sorts of things: living your life authentically, social change, observations about our culture, and much more. But it’s not at all disjointed; in fact it flows together very well. It’s a very quick read and definitely worth it. My only complaint is that Steinem has only written three other books in addition to this one and she’s now well into her seventies – I wish she’d write more. Grade: A-
Day After Night by Anita Diamant – A novel by the author of the best-seller “The Red Tent”, this one takes place in a 1940’s British-run internment camp and stars several European Jewish women who fled the Holocaust and are waiting in the camp to be allowed into Palestine. It tells the stories of the different women in the camp – obviously given the setting, each one has lost most or all of her family and is struggling with the aftershocks of what she experienced in Europe. I couldn’t make up my mind about this book. I listened to this book on CD and at first I thought the problem was the voice actor reading the book. I thought that perhaps I didn’t like her acting. But the more I thought about it, I realized that she was actually handling a number of different accents well. The more I listened to this book, the more I think the problem is the dialog. It’s just really poor. I wanted to but couldn’t “buy” that this is how the characters spoke. But despite major problems with dialog, I did like the setting a lot and I wanted to know what would happen to the characters. I wanted to listen to it and wouldn’t have put this one aside despite its problems. Can you enjoy a novel’s plot while acknowledging that one aspect of it is like embarrassingly bad? Hey, I was glued to “Memoirs of a Geisha” even though I could kinda tell it wouldn’t win any literary prizes either. Grade: no idea what to do here. B- I guess
Started reading, didn’t finish:
Lavinia by Ursula K LeGuin – I can’t believe I have to put this book in this section. I can’t. LeGuin is such a renowned writer, and this novel is historical fiction – my favorite! So I really wanted to enjoy this book, I really tried to get into it, I read over 120 pages. But it was boring as all hell.
Twenties Girl by Sophie Kinsella – A coworker lent me this audio book. I looked at the cover. A white background, the title written in cursive, a drawing of a slim young woman – oh no, chick lit! Up to this point, I’ve never been able to finish a chick lit book. I tried twice, with “Bridget Jones’ Diary” and “Good in Bed”, but neither book interested me. However my partner Doris listened to this audio book first and she told me it wasn’t bad and is worth a listen given that there’s not much else to do in the car – turns out, she was right. It tells the story of Lara Linton who is obsessing over a guy who dumped her, and is losing all her money in a failed business that she co-founded with a friend when the ghost of her Great Aunt comes to her. The voice actor who read this CD was fantastic. She handled a bunch of different accents and voices perfectly. The male lead in this novel was a bit too good to be true; I wonder if you see that a lot in chick lit. So hey – kudos to me for finishing a type of book that normally I wouldn’t pick up! Grade: C+
Witnessing History by Jennifer Zeng -- Zeng was born in China in the 60’s, and as an adult she discovered a religion called Falun Gong. She felt that the religion changed her life and even helped her with numerous medical issues. But the Chinese government soon began a crackdown on all practitioners of this religion (despite the fact that, as Zeng describes it, it’s a peaceful religion that never attacked the Chinese government or anyone else for that matter). Zeng tells us that she – and thousands of other believers – were placed in Chinese “re-education” camps. I’ve read a lot about China. The way they treat their citizens is horrifying. I thought I was kind of numb to it by now. But the conditions that Zeng describes pretty much shocked and nauseated me all over again. I won’t go into a lot detail here except to say that they experienced torture: beatings, electric shocks, being forced to remain squatting for sixteen hours at a time (sixteen!), sleep deprivation, bathroom deprivation, constant manual labor, mental torture, and every other horror you can imagine. I must add that these prison sentences occurred recently – within the last 10 years. I wish someday China would experience sanctions on the international scene for how it treats its people but I guess greed has won out (why exactly was China allowed to host an Olympics?) This book nudged me back over to Amnesty International’s site to write a few letters. Grade: B
More books behind the cut!
A Stronger Kinship by Anna-Lisa Cox – Sometimes history can be fascinating. This well-researched book documents the true story of a town in Michigan that – although founded before the Civil War – had Black and White Americans living, working, and intermarrying together. It wasn’t a utopia but it was very unique in this regard. The author definitely did her research and although the book was a bit dry at times, it was worth a read. Grade: B-
Cook Food by Lisa Jervis – Even I don’t normally read cook books cover to cover, but: a) this book is really short, b) it’s more than a cook book. Basically, Jervis (co-founder and former editor of my favorite magazine Bitch) shares how she goes about eating meals that are locally grown, simple, healthy, easy on the budget, and animal-friendly. It was a good reminder for me that avoiding the bad foods (you know the ones: heavily processed, came in a box, you had to unwrap plastic to get to it, sugar-filled, etc, etc) not only is better for me and the planet but is delicious and do-able. I can’t wait to try more of the recipes in here! The first one I made (today) was good. Grade: A
Doing Sixty and Seventy by Gloria Steinem – This is a short book by the legendary feminist writer and activist. I’ve enjoyed everything of hers that I’ve read. She always has fresh and new ideas, and always helps me to see things in a different light. This starts out being a book on aging, but it ends up being a book on all sorts of things: living your life authentically, social change, observations about our culture, and much more. But it’s not at all disjointed; in fact it flows together very well. It’s a very quick read and definitely worth it. My only complaint is that Steinem has only written three other books in addition to this one and she’s now well into her seventies – I wish she’d write more. Grade: A-
Day After Night by Anita Diamant – A novel by the author of the best-seller “The Red Tent”, this one takes place in a 1940’s British-run internment camp and stars several European Jewish women who fled the Holocaust and are waiting in the camp to be allowed into Palestine. It tells the stories of the different women in the camp – obviously given the setting, each one has lost most or all of her family and is struggling with the aftershocks of what she experienced in Europe. I couldn’t make up my mind about this book. I listened to this book on CD and at first I thought the problem was the voice actor reading the book. I thought that perhaps I didn’t like her acting. But the more I thought about it, I realized that she was actually handling a number of different accents well. The more I listened to this book, the more I think the problem is the dialog. It’s just really poor. I wanted to but couldn’t “buy” that this is how the characters spoke. But despite major problems with dialog, I did like the setting a lot and I wanted to know what would happen to the characters. I wanted to listen to it and wouldn’t have put this one aside despite its problems. Can you enjoy a novel’s plot while acknowledging that one aspect of it is like embarrassingly bad? Hey, I was glued to “Memoirs of a Geisha” even though I could kinda tell it wouldn’t win any literary prizes either. Grade: no idea what to do here. B- I guess
Started reading, didn’t finish:
Lavinia by Ursula K LeGuin – I can’t believe I have to put this book in this section. I can’t. LeGuin is such a renowned writer, and this novel is historical fiction – my favorite! So I really wanted to enjoy this book, I really tried to get into it, I read over 120 pages. But it was boring as all hell.
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no subject
Date: 2010-09-27 12:45 am (UTC)I will have to pick up "Cook Food"- sounds great!
I didn't know LeGuin was a hist-fic novelist! I've only read short stories by her (under duress in English Lit classes). "The One Who Walk Away From Omelas" is a disturbing dystopian story that makes one think about the cost of serving the 'greater good'. So after reading that one, I won't touch her stuff again.
no subject
Date: 2010-09-27 01:02 am (UTC)"Cook Food" was excellent. It's like anyone can cook healthy food.
Thanks for reading my reviews!
no subject
Date: 2010-09-27 05:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-27 09:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-27 10:49 am (UTC)That said, The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed are two of the best science fiction books ever. And I still love The Wizard of Earthsea books.
no subject
Date: 2010-09-27 11:03 am (UTC)