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stormkeeper_lovedoris) wrote2012-08-02 01:43 pm
stormkeeper_lovedoris) wrote2012-08-02 01:43 pm
Entry tags:
Book Report
Lots of grades of “B” here. And my last book report was posted July 21, so I knocked these out in about a week and a half.
A Woman Alone: Travel Tales from Around the Globe, edited by Conlon, Emerick, and De Tessan – Maybe I’ve OD-ed on travel memoirs for the time being. These were readable enough but not outstanding and I started to get a bit bored with the book. The editors certainly did do a nice job of picking a wide range of travel destinations, and helpfully began each essay with a world map highlighting the respective destination. Grade: B-
Barnheart by Jenna Woginrich – In a world filled with snarky, sarcastic memoirs, this book comes as a breath of fresh country air. Jenna Woginrich is obsessed with wanting to become a farmer. She has very little money, no relatives who farm, limited experience – but she goes for it. She works a day job and then raises sheep and chickens and grows vegetables in her spare time. She doesn’t care what’s on TV and would rather hang out with her neighbors, playing her fiddle at potlucks. Unlike some memoirs of this ilk, there’s not a judgmental or negative bone in this book’s body. I love the fact that the author is sincere and sweet. This was a short memoir that left me wanting to hang out with Jenna. Grade: B
More books behind the cut!
The Letter Q: Queer Writers’ Notes to Their Younger Selves, edited by Sarah Moon and James Lecesne – I definitely enjoyed this book, the subject of which you can probably guess from the subtitle. It’s not a collection of sappiness, but I couldn’t help but to get uplifted while reading it. I also felt the editors did a good job getting a diverse array of contributors. Grade: B
The Color of Water: A Black Man’s Tribute to His White Mother by James McBride – I am intrigued by the subject matter, given that I may be adopting a Black child myself (and I am white). One hope I had for this book was that it would be chock full of great advice for white parents who raise Black children, but in fact, the author’s mother flouted all the advice that such parents are given nowadays. She refused to talk about race or the fact that she and her children were of different races. When the author as a teenager asked his mother to explain a term he read in a book – “tragic mulatto” – she flatly refused to have any dialog about it at all. The author’s mother messed up plenty of other things too (her house was filthy - bordering on hoarding-condition - , she had so many kids that none received much individual attention, and she had so many kids that sometimes she literally couldn’t feed them all), but this memoir is a loving tribute to a mother who ensured her children grew up understanding the value of education and hard work. We also hear the mother tell of her background, growing up in an unloving family. I listened to this book on audio and it definitely made my commute go by faster, which is my goal for any audio book I listen to. Grade: B
The Dark Enquiry by Deanna Raybourn – This is the fifth book in the Lady Julia Grey series of historical mysteries. I liked it a lot, as I have all of its predecessors. Three-dimensional characters, descriptive writing, and a rapidly moving plot are a great formula. I don’t read a lot of mysteries (other than this series), so I tend to finish Raybourn’s books asking, ‘How on earth was I supposed to have figured that out?’ Unfortunately, during the last three books I have gotten good at identifying who the killer is – not due to any extraordinary sleuthing on my part but rather due to the fact that in Raybourn’s books, it is always the person you least suspect. (My apologies if that ruins it for anyone). Grade: B-
Books I started reading but didn’t finish:
None this time
A Woman Alone: Travel Tales from Around the Globe, edited by Conlon, Emerick, and De Tessan – Maybe I’ve OD-ed on travel memoirs for the time being. These were readable enough but not outstanding and I started to get a bit bored with the book. The editors certainly did do a nice job of picking a wide range of travel destinations, and helpfully began each essay with a world map highlighting the respective destination. Grade: B-
Barnheart by Jenna Woginrich – In a world filled with snarky, sarcastic memoirs, this book comes as a breath of fresh country air. Jenna Woginrich is obsessed with wanting to become a farmer. She has very little money, no relatives who farm, limited experience – but she goes for it. She works a day job and then raises sheep and chickens and grows vegetables in her spare time. She doesn’t care what’s on TV and would rather hang out with her neighbors, playing her fiddle at potlucks. Unlike some memoirs of this ilk, there’s not a judgmental or negative bone in this book’s body. I love the fact that the author is sincere and sweet. This was a short memoir that left me wanting to hang out with Jenna. Grade: B
More books behind the cut!
The Letter Q: Queer Writers’ Notes to Their Younger Selves, edited by Sarah Moon and James Lecesne – I definitely enjoyed this book, the subject of which you can probably guess from the subtitle. It’s not a collection of sappiness, but I couldn’t help but to get uplifted while reading it. I also felt the editors did a good job getting a diverse array of contributors. Grade: B
The Color of Water: A Black Man’s Tribute to His White Mother by James McBride – I am intrigued by the subject matter, given that I may be adopting a Black child myself (and I am white). One hope I had for this book was that it would be chock full of great advice for white parents who raise Black children, but in fact, the author’s mother flouted all the advice that such parents are given nowadays. She refused to talk about race or the fact that she and her children were of different races. When the author as a teenager asked his mother to explain a term he read in a book – “tragic mulatto” – she flatly refused to have any dialog about it at all. The author’s mother messed up plenty of other things too (her house was filthy - bordering on hoarding-condition - , she had so many kids that none received much individual attention, and she had so many kids that sometimes she literally couldn’t feed them all), but this memoir is a loving tribute to a mother who ensured her children grew up understanding the value of education and hard work. We also hear the mother tell of her background, growing up in an unloving family. I listened to this book on audio and it definitely made my commute go by faster, which is my goal for any audio book I listen to. Grade: B
The Dark Enquiry by Deanna Raybourn – This is the fifth book in the Lady Julia Grey series of historical mysteries. I liked it a lot, as I have all of its predecessors. Three-dimensional characters, descriptive writing, and a rapidly moving plot are a great formula. I don’t read a lot of mysteries (other than this series), so I tend to finish Raybourn’s books asking, ‘How on earth was I supposed to have figured that out?’ Unfortunately, during the last three books I have gotten good at identifying who the killer is – not due to any extraordinary sleuthing on my part but rather due to the fact that in Raybourn’s books, it is always the person you least suspect. (My apologies if that ruins it for anyone). Grade: B-
Books I started reading but didn’t finish:
None this time
no subject
was "A Woman Alone" about woman traveling solo? Did it have helpful hints/tips/ideas? it's a bummer it wasnt' more compelling.
i totally hear you about the snarky sarcastic memoirs. does she deal with a lot of struggles in learning how to be a farmer? i think many people have this romantic fantasy about it but find out the hard way that it's WAY harder than they thought it was going to be (especially if you come from a non-rural background).
on the letter Q - would you think about writing a note to your younger self? i was thinking about that. how much of a difference it could make to a struggling junior high/high school kid to get a message from their future self? then again, that might change your actions/behaviors and that would change who your future self would end up being. still. an interesting thought. i once read a new agey book that suggested that talking to your "younger self" was a way to get through/deal with trauma at that age that it's hard to move past.
the color of water soudns itneresting. how old was the author? just wondering what kind of time period he was growing up in.
I know you said you don't read a lot of mysteries, buyt do you like the ones you've read in general? it's one genre i've never gotten into. sometimes i've enjoyed books that had mystery-like components, but overall i haven't really enjoyed mysteries in general (tho to be fair, i haven't read any in a long time). what i do remember is feeling like you did: how on earth was i supposed to figure that out? while i appreciate having to catch subtleties and nuances without having it beaten into your head, i often felt like they were way TOO subtle and nuanced.
thanks for sharing!
no subject
was "A Woman Alone" about woman traveling solo? Did it have helpful hints/tips/ideas? it's a bummer it wasnt' more compelling.
Yes to the first, no to the second. It was there to share the writers' experiences but definitely wasn't a how-to or tips kind of thing.
i totally hear you about the snarky sarcastic memoirs. does she deal with a lot of struggles in learning how to be a farmer? i think many people have this romantic fantasy about it but find out the hard way that it's WAY harder than they thought it was going to be (especially if you come from a non-rural background).
She is very clear about how hard it is. Yet her book isn't a downer either. I liked that she was just this young woman pursuing her dream no matter how difficult it is.
on the letter Q - would you think about writing a note to your younger self? i was thinking about that. how much of a difference it could make to a struggling junior high/high school kid to get a message from their future self? then again, that might change your actions/behaviors and that would change who your future self would end up being. still. an interesting thought. i once read a new agey book that suggested that talking to your "younger self" was a way to get through/deal with trauma at that age that it's hard to move past.
Have you done it? I never have seriously considered doing so.
In Color of Water, the author was born in the 1950's.
Amen to what you said on mysteries! Totally! To answer your question, other than Deanna Rayborne's books, I hardly touch the genre.