At long last, I bring you my seventh annual book review post! This post is eight-plus hours in the scheming, planning, typing, editing, deleting, and pasting. I hope you enjoy this post and even more, some of the books mentioned herein.
This year I read twenty-nine new books, reread fifteen, and tasted several more.
I'm slightly embarrassed by that number, even though I know I've read more books than many other people did in 2016.
The culprit?
Me + social media.
Yep. Too much time on the internet and not enough time on the pages.
I intend to fix that this year...though I already said that I spent over eight hours on this...oh dear!
- - - - - - - - - - -
Past book lists are linked below and are also accessible on the bar below the blog header. Thanks for reading.
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
* fun
# favorite
PB picture book
AB audiobook
Children's Books/Young Adult
*# The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place, Maryrose Wood
AB Book Two: The Hidden Gallery
AB Book Three: The Unseen Guest
AB Book Four: The Interrupted Tale
AB Book Five: The Unmapped Sea
I love the Incorrigible Children books! The saga of the three Incorrigible children and their plucky governess, Penny, continues in many different settings, including London, the woods on the Ashton estate, Swanburne Academy for Poor Bright Females, and Brighton. The story is slowly unraveling of how Alexander, Beowulf, and Cassiopeia came to be abandoned and how they are related to Penelope Lumley. It is hard to distinguish between each of these books because I listened to the books in a short period of time, but basically, the children were raised by wolves and thus have wolfish tendencies...but so does their patron, Frederick Ashton. A curse has been pronounced upon the Ashton family because of ruthless action by an ancestor, and Penny, her friend Simon Harley-Dickinson, and a few others are working to unravel the mystery before the curse becomes permanent...or they are wiped out by Frederick's thought-to-be-dead father. The books are hilarious and punny. Katherine Kellgren is a talented and flexible narrator.
I am anxiously awaiting the sixth and final installment!
AB Ivy and Bean, Annie Barrows
Ivy and Bean, two neighbor girls, find out that they enjoy being friends, after all (their moms tried to get them to play together, but both resisted until one fateful day). I don't remember much about the book, except that the girls pretend to be witches and run through the neighbors' backyards...or something like that. I can't even remember Bean's real name. :P It was cute, but obviously not memorable (at least not at this stage of my life).
Harris and Me: A Summer Remembered, Gary Paulsen
An unnamed city boy is taken from his chronically drunk, irresponsible parents to spend a summer with his cousins in the country. The boy and his cousin, Harris, have all sorts of adventures, from escaping the terrifying rooster to tackling pigs in the pigsty to riding into town to watch the same old movie week after week. The synopsis sounds interesting, but I wouldn't recommend it; the boy could use a filter.
* Ramona books, Beverly Cleary
AB Ramona the Brave
AB Ramona and Her Mother
AB Ramona's World
I love the Ramona books. Ramona is such a character! I got all of the Ramona books as a bundle when I had my Audible account, so I can listen to her adventures over and over with the click of the mouse. :)
Treasures of the Snow, Patricia St. John
Lucien and Annette learn to forgive and be forgiven after each holding grudges following a serious accident involving Annette's little brother, Dani. Written by Patricia St. John, who lived in Switzerland for a while as a girl and later moved to North Africa as a missionary nurse.
Fun fact: The movie version of "Treasures of the Snow" was filmed in the same Swiss village where Patricia St. John and her family lived for a brief time when she was a girl. The village didn't want to permit the filming at first (they had had bad experiences with other filmmakers). But when the villagers learned that it was Patricia St. John who wanted to film there, they agreed out of love for her mother; they still remembered her, decades later.
Back to Blackbrick, Sarah Moore Fitzgerald
This was a sad book based on an interesting idea. Cosmo has experienced a lot of loss in his young life, the most recent loss coming in the form of his beloved granddad slipping away into Alzheimer's. Cosmo is not coping well, but, in a moment of rare clarity, his granddad gives him a key to a place called Blackbrick Abbey and tells Cosmo to go there. Once there, Cosmo meets his granddad as a young man and tries to change the past in order to stave off the Alzheimer's in the present.
It is a strange story of time travel...or is it time travel? Is it really a story of Cosmo's inner thoughts? Is it all his imagination? Even at the end of the book I wasn't sure. I did appreciate the love between Cosmo and his granddad.
Pax, Sara Pennypacker
Peter rescued Pax, his pet fox and best friend, as a young kit. Through a series of circumstances, Peter's father decides that the fox must go. After abandoning Pax in the woods, Peter realizes what he has done and runs away to find his fox. Pax, meanwhile, sets out to find Peter, learning about living in the wild at the same time. Both characters overcome obstacles along their journeys, but the outcome is not what you might expect.
The book switches between Peter's and Pax's viewpoints.
The Tales of Beedle the Bard, J.K. Rowling
The Harry Potter books mention several made-up books, such as A History of Magic, One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi, and The Tales of Beedle the Bard. J.K. Rowling chose a few of these titles and wrote them out as actual books as a way to raise money for a few different charitable foundations. The Tales of Beedle the Bard contains a few fairy tales/parables/morality tales and plays a major role in the last Harry Potter book, The Deathly Hallows.
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Parts 1 and 2, a play by Jack Thorne; based on a original story by J.K. Rowling, John Tiffany, and Jack Thorne
Harry's second son, Albus, ends up in Slytherin House and becomes good friends with Draco's only son, Scorpius. Albus and Scorpius go on a series of adventures to bring Cedric Diggory back from the dead using a Time-Turner. Their actions have unintended consequences, and soon the whole gang is involved to put everything back to rights and to heal the relationship between Harry and Albus.
I didn't like this book that much. The play was not written by J.K. Rowling herself, though she did authorize it. The characters and tone were largely inconsistent with the original books, and after reading several reviews on Goodreads, I can see some gaping plot holes. I'm glad I read it, because it is a Harry Potter book, but I doubt I will buy, even from Goodwill.
Best part:
"Ethel! Cancel the goblins!"
~Hermione, Minister of Magic
Quidditch through the Ages, Kennilworthy Whisp (J.K. Rowling)
Another book written as a fundraiser, this one on the history of Quidditch, the best sport in the magical world. It was pretty funny.
Biographies/Autobiographies
# An Ordinary Woman's Extraordinary Faith: The Autobiography of Patricia St. John, Patricia St. John
Patricia St. John was born in England, spent some time in Switzerland, worked as a nurse in London during World War II, served as a house mother at a Christian boarding school, and moved to North Africa where she worked as a missionary and nurse. I can't remember many details about this book, but I really enjoyed it.
# These Strange Ashes, Elisabeth Elliot
The story of Elisabeth Elliot's often discouraging, disheartening, and seemingly fruitless mission work in Ecuador before her marriage to Jim Elliot.
"Of one thing I am perfectly sure: God's story never ends with 'ashes.'"
Maud: The Life of L.M. Montgomery, Harry Bruce
As the title says, this is a book about Lucy Maud Montgomery's life. It is rather informally written, though the facts are all straight (as far as I can tell). It was a very interesting introduction to the details of her life, including her mother's early death; abandonment by her father; living with her grandparents; working at a newspaper office in Halifax, Nova Scotia; teaching on PEI; taking care of her grandmother for several years; marrying a depressed pastor; and writing her famous books. I am looking forward to reading a more serious biography of L.M. Montgomery...one of these days.
# One Vision Only, Carolyn L. Canfield
The biography of my favorite missionary, Isobel Kuhn. Carolyn Canfield met Isobel Kuhn before she died and wrote her biography after death. This book contains a section called "Vistas" which were Isobel's own writings about real missionary life and marriage. My favorite "vistas" were about the cleaning of the filthy rental house and John's reaction to the birth of their daughter, Kathryn. I don't remember much about this book, unfortunately, but I did learn some new things about Isobel by reading it.
Isobel grew up in a nominally Christian home, went off the deep end in college, and became a Christian after she graduated. She went to Moody Bible Institute in Chicago where she met her future husband, who was accepted as a missionary to China before she was. Isobel eventually sailed for China, where she and John were married. They worked in various towns and cities in China before being assigned to their hearts' desire, the Lisu people in rural China. John and Isobel were forced out when the communists took over after World War II. They later ended up in Thailand, working with the same people group. Isobel died from cancer at age fifty-five.
Here's an article about her from The Traveling Team website.
The Mockingbird Next Door: Life with Harper Lee, Marja Mills
Marja Mills was tasked with writing about a city-wide book initiative in Chicago which involved reading To Kill a Mockingbird. On a research trip to Alabama, Mills, amazingly, was able to meet Harper Lee's sister, Alice, and struck up a friendship. She eventually moved to rural Alabama, right next door to the Lee sisters, and got to know them over a few years. She wrote this book about Harper Lee and her family, the context for TKaM, and her experiences in the South. Unfortunately, controversy surrounds this book. In her later life, Harper Lee said that Mills had exploited her and her sister, but Alice denies this. I side with Marja Mills and Alice on this one.
All in all, it was very interesting book about Harper Lee and her context in the South.
* AB This Time Together: Laughter and Reflection, Carol Burnett
Carol Burnett is a well-known TV personality and comedian. This book is a series of short chapters about many different experiences of hers, some of them questionable, a few sad, and many hilarious! She shares stories from her childhood days, Broadway days, TV show days, and recent days. She also talks about hilarious encounters and misunderstandings with famous people such as Carey Grant, Julie Andrews, and Lucille Ball. Carol Burnett reads the book herself for the audio version, and it is great.
Etc.
The Girl in the Red Coat: A Memoir, Roma Ligocka with Iris von Finckenstein; Margo Bettauer Dembo, translator
Shaunna: Do you want to have a small book club?
Me: Okay.
*we read one book over a series of a few months*
Well, that didn't last long! It was fun, though. :)
This book was suggested to me by Irene, who was tickled when I told her Shaunna and I were going to read it. It is the true story of a Polish Jewish family caught up in World War II. The mother and daughter are not sent to the camps, but the father was taken away to a work camp, I think. This is the story of their life during World War II and the years following.
This was an interesting book, though not uplifting or inspirational. The most interesting part to me was the memory about returning to school after the war. The school was filled with traumatized children who acted and reacted in all sorts of unpredictable ways, led by a teacher who herself was traumatized. How sad! How daunting!
Honeybee: Poems and Short Prose, Naomi Shihab Nye
I found this book at the OKC book sale last year and read it before sending it off to one of my friends (who had inspired me to read Nye's work in the first place). As a book of poems and short prose, it doesn't tell a single linear story. I haven't read much poetry, but so far, Naomi Shihab Nye is my favorite poet.
One poem:
The United States Is Not the World
and this I was reminded of by
mamas in silk saris
grandpas in burgundy turbans,
smoky overcoats
Sikh boys with powder-puff topknots
braided girls munching Belgian chocolate
and a gloomy little lad with a strange
golden cone on his head
Thank you, I said. O thank you Gate
D-4, Amsterdam to Delhi
months of smug Americana dissolving
quickly
as tiny white no-jetlag pills
on the tongue
# I'll Ask You Three Times, Are You OK? Tales of Driving and Being Driven, Naomi Shihab Nye
One of Naomi Shihab Nye's stories includes the line, "On the night the first car crashed into their home, they were both sleeping." Wait, the first car? Yep.
IAYTTAYOK is a book of short chapters, all dealing with some kind of car or transportation. She talks with taxi drivers, worries about her son as he bounces around the bed of his grandpa's truck on a country lane, tells about running over a brick mailbox while her friend was driving another friend's car, and escaping from a potential kidnapper (don't take rides from strangers, kids!). I really like this one.
Peace Child, Don Richardson
The Richardsons moved to a rural part of Papua New Guinea to share the gospel with an unreached people group. They had a hard time communicating the gospel to this group because of ingrained cultural values that were contrary to the values of Christ. Eventually God revealed the key to their understanding, and the tribe was transformed by the gospel.
The big idea that I pulled from this book was God's kindness and grace in providing a cultural key in every group of people that can be used to unlock the truth in a uniquely effective way.
Operation Ajax: The Story of the CIA Coup that Remade the Middle East, Daniel Burwen (artwork) and Mike de Seve (text)
This is a graphic novel telling the story of the US- and UK-sponsored coup in Iran in 1953. The US and the UK were interested in exploiting Iran's oil resources. When Mohammed Mossadegh and others figured out what was going on, they nationalized the oil industry. The US and UK worked with people within and without Iran to destabilize and eventually overthrow Mossadegh and the fledgling Iranian democracy...and the Middle East was never the same.
This graphic novel was inspired in part by Steven Kinzer's book All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror.
Humans of New York: Stories, Brandon Stanton
Brandon Stanton runs a famous blog and Facebook page, filled with images and stories of everyday people he meets in New York (or Iran...or Turkey...or Ohio...or, currently, Argentina). This is his second book of selected pictures and stories.
*# The Annotated Anne of Green Gables, L.M. Montgomery; Wendy E. Barry, Margaret Anne Doody, Mary E. Doody Jones, editors
I have decided that I like annotated books. I read Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography of Laura Ingalls Wilder in 2015, and I read the annotated notes in The Annotated Little Women in 2016 (I didn't finish all of the articles in the Little Women book).
Anyway, I really, really enjoyed Annotated Anne, though it took me a while to get through it all. In the course of my reading, I learned about pokeweed (and discovered that it grows here in Oklahoma, too), the Scottish heritage of Prince Edward Island, the treatment of orphans in the early 1900s, and many other interesting things...that I can't remember right now. :P I thought the articles in the back of the book were fascinating. This book was very well done.
# Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis, J.D. Vance
One of the books of the year. J.D. Vance weaves cultural and economic commentary in with his personal experiences. J.D. grew up in unstable environment, to put it mildly. His mother was an addict, an emotional abuser, and a serial girlfriend/wife. The constants in J.D.'s life were his sister and his grandparents, and their belief in him made all the difference. In spite of the poverty, the upheaval, the emotional abuse, the instability, and the suppressed anger, J.D. broke the vicious cycle and is a successful lawyer and author today. He is not a Christian...or at least not yet.
Some observations:
He is a political conservative, despite the welfare system being created for families like his
This is the first non-fiction book that I've read that was written by a peer (he was born in 1984)
This book really helps explain the viewpoint of those angry, middle class, white people we have heard so much about
There is a reference to Harry Potter (J.D. mentioned that he read a lot as a kid, and I was waiting for him to mention Harry Potter...which he did, haha!)
Highly recommended; Amos read it, too.
Rereads
In the order I read them...
* AB Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, J.K. Rowling
* AB Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, J.K. Rowling
* AB Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, J.K. Rowling
* # AB More about Paddington, Michael Bond
* AB Ramona Forever, Beverly Cleary
*# AB Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, J.K. Rowling
* AB Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, J.K. Rowling
* AB Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, J.K. Rowling
*# AB Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, J.K. Rowling
* AB Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, J.K. Rowling
* AB Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, J.K. Rowling
*# AB Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, J.K. Rowling
* AB Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, J.K. Rowling
* AB Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, J.K. Rowling
# Lila, Marilynne Robinson
The last time I "reviewed" Lila, I did not do it justice. I love this book. It is beautiful.
Lila is "stolen" by a woman named Doll. Her life is one of upheaval and deprivation as she and Doll toil as migrant workers during the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl. Through a series of circumstances that I don't want to give away, Lila arrives in Gilead, Iowa. There she meets a kind, old pastor and marries him, though she is much younger. As she is expecting their child, Lila thinks back on her life, wondering at the meaning of it all and wondering if she can trust both the old man and herself with this next stage in her life.
The story moves backward and forward in time as Lila reflects on her past life and adjusts to her new one. This is not a light read, and it takes concentration, but I love it.
A word to the wise: Do not listen to this as an audiobook. The narrator sounds stiff and odd; the voice you give Lila in your head will be much better. :)
This year I read twenty-nine new books, reread fifteen, and tasted several more.
I'm slightly embarrassed by that number, even though I know I've read more books than many other people did in 2016.
The culprit?
Me + social media.
Yep. Too much time on the internet and not enough time on the pages.
I intend to fix that this year...though I already said that I spent over eight hours on this...oh dear!
- - - - - - - - - - -
Past book lists are linked below and are also accessible on the bar below the blog header. Thanks for reading.
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
* fun
# favorite
PB picture book
AB audiobook
Jennica-Ayelet's 2016 Reading List
*# The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place, Maryrose Wood
AB Book Two: The Hidden Gallery
 |
| via Wheeler Studio |
AB Book Four: The Interrupted Tale
AB Book Five: The Unmapped Sea
I love the Incorrigible Children books! The saga of the three Incorrigible children and their plucky governess, Penny, continues in many different settings, including London, the woods on the Ashton estate, Swanburne Academy for Poor Bright Females, and Brighton. The story is slowly unraveling of how Alexander, Beowulf, and Cassiopeia came to be abandoned and how they are related to Penelope Lumley. It is hard to distinguish between each of these books because I listened to the books in a short period of time, but basically, the children were raised by wolves and thus have wolfish tendencies...but so does their patron, Frederick Ashton. A curse has been pronounced upon the Ashton family because of ruthless action by an ancestor, and Penny, her friend Simon Harley-Dickinson, and a few others are working to unravel the mystery before the curse becomes permanent...or they are wiped out by Frederick's thought-to-be-dead father. The books are hilarious and punny. Katherine Kellgren is a talented and flexible narrator.
I am anxiously awaiting the sixth and final installment!
AB Ivy and Bean, Annie Barrows
Ivy and Bean, two neighbor girls, find out that they enjoy being friends, after all (their moms tried to get them to play together, but both resisted until one fateful day). I don't remember much about the book, except that the girls pretend to be witches and run through the neighbors' backyards...or something like that. I can't even remember Bean's real name. :P It was cute, but obviously not memorable (at least not at this stage of my life).
Harris and Me: A Summer Remembered, Gary Paulsen
An unnamed city boy is taken from his chronically drunk, irresponsible parents to spend a summer with his cousins in the country. The boy and his cousin, Harris, have all sorts of adventures, from escaping the terrifying rooster to tackling pigs in the pigsty to riding into town to watch the same old movie week after week. The synopsis sounds interesting, but I wouldn't recommend it; the boy could use a filter.
* Ramona books, Beverly Cleary
AB Ramona the Brave
AB Ramona and Her Mother
AB Ramona's World
I love the Ramona books. Ramona is such a character! I got all of the Ramona books as a bundle when I had my Audible account, so I can listen to her adventures over and over with the click of the mouse. :)
Treasures of the Snow, Patricia St. John
Lucien and Annette learn to forgive and be forgiven after each holding grudges following a serious accident involving Annette's little brother, Dani. Written by Patricia St. John, who lived in Switzerland for a while as a girl and later moved to North Africa as a missionary nurse.
 |
| Click on the picture to read the quote from Annette's grandmother |
Fun fact: The movie version of "Treasures of the Snow" was filmed in the same Swiss village where Patricia St. John and her family lived for a brief time when she was a girl. The village didn't want to permit the filming at first (they had had bad experiences with other filmmakers). But when the villagers learned that it was Patricia St. John who wanted to film there, they agreed out of love for her mother; they still remembered her, decades later.
Back to Blackbrick, Sarah Moore Fitzgerald
This was a sad book based on an interesting idea. Cosmo has experienced a lot of loss in his young life, the most recent loss coming in the form of his beloved granddad slipping away into Alzheimer's. Cosmo is not coping well, but, in a moment of rare clarity, his granddad gives him a key to a place called Blackbrick Abbey and tells Cosmo to go there. Once there, Cosmo meets his granddad as a young man and tries to change the past in order to stave off the Alzheimer's in the present.
It is a strange story of time travel...or is it time travel? Is it really a story of Cosmo's inner thoughts? Is it all his imagination? Even at the end of the book I wasn't sure. I did appreciate the love between Cosmo and his granddad.
Pax, Sara Pennypacker
Peter rescued Pax, his pet fox and best friend, as a young kit. Through a series of circumstances, Peter's father decides that the fox must go. After abandoning Pax in the woods, Peter realizes what he has done and runs away to find his fox. Pax, meanwhile, sets out to find Peter, learning about living in the wild at the same time. Both characters overcome obstacles along their journeys, but the outcome is not what you might expect.
The book switches between Peter's and Pax's viewpoints.
 |
| via wikipedia |
The Harry Potter books mention several made-up books, such as A History of Magic, One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi, and The Tales of Beedle the Bard. J.K. Rowling chose a few of these titles and wrote them out as actual books as a way to raise money for a few different charitable foundations. The Tales of Beedle the Bard contains a few fairy tales/parables/morality tales and plays a major role in the last Harry Potter book, The Deathly Hallows.
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Parts 1 and 2, a play by Jack Thorne; based on a original story by J.K. Rowling, John Tiffany, and Jack Thorne
Harry's second son, Albus, ends up in Slytherin House and becomes good friends with Draco's only son, Scorpius. Albus and Scorpius go on a series of adventures to bring Cedric Diggory back from the dead using a Time-Turner. Their actions have unintended consequences, and soon the whole gang is involved to put everything back to rights and to heal the relationship between Harry and Albus.
I didn't like this book that much. The play was not written by J.K. Rowling herself, though she did authorize it. The characters and tone were largely inconsistent with the original books, and after reading several reviews on Goodreads, I can see some gaping plot holes. I'm glad I read it, because it is a Harry Potter book, but I doubt I will buy, even from Goodwill.
Best part:
"Ethel! Cancel the goblins!"
~Hermione, Minister of Magic
Quidditch through the Ages, Kennilworthy Whisp (J.K. Rowling)
Another book written as a fundraiser, this one on the history of Quidditch, the best sport in the magical world. It was pretty funny.
Biographies/Autobiographies
# An Ordinary Woman's Extraordinary Faith: The Autobiography of Patricia St. John, Patricia St. John
Patricia St. John was born in England, spent some time in Switzerland, worked as a nurse in London during World War II, served as a house mother at a Christian boarding school, and moved to North Africa where she worked as a missionary and nurse. I can't remember many details about this book, but I really enjoyed it.
# These Strange Ashes, Elisabeth Elliot
The story of Elisabeth Elliot's often discouraging, disheartening, and seemingly fruitless mission work in Ecuador before her marriage to Jim Elliot.
"Of one thing I am perfectly sure: God's story never ends with 'ashes.'"
 |
| via Goodreads |
As the title says, this is a book about Lucy Maud Montgomery's life. It is rather informally written, though the facts are all straight (as far as I can tell). It was a very interesting introduction to the details of her life, including her mother's early death; abandonment by her father; living with her grandparents; working at a newspaper office in Halifax, Nova Scotia; teaching on PEI; taking care of her grandmother for several years; marrying a depressed pastor; and writing her famous books. I am looking forward to reading a more serious biography of L.M. Montgomery...one of these days.
# One Vision Only, Carolyn L. Canfield
The biography of my favorite missionary, Isobel Kuhn. Carolyn Canfield met Isobel Kuhn before she died and wrote her biography after death. This book contains a section called "Vistas" which were Isobel's own writings about real missionary life and marriage. My favorite "vistas" were about the cleaning of the filthy rental house and John's reaction to the birth of their daughter, Kathryn. I don't remember much about this book, unfortunately, but I did learn some new things about Isobel by reading it.
Isobel grew up in a nominally Christian home, went off the deep end in college, and became a Christian after she graduated. She went to Moody Bible Institute in Chicago where she met her future husband, who was accepted as a missionary to China before she was. Isobel eventually sailed for China, where she and John were married. They worked in various towns and cities in China before being assigned to their hearts' desire, the Lisu people in rural China. John and Isobel were forced out when the communists took over after World War II. They later ended up in Thailand, working with the same people group. Isobel died from cancer at age fifty-five.
Here's an article about her from The Traveling Team website.
The Mockingbird Next Door: Life with Harper Lee, Marja Mills
Marja Mills was tasked with writing about a city-wide book initiative in Chicago which involved reading To Kill a Mockingbird. On a research trip to Alabama, Mills, amazingly, was able to meet Harper Lee's sister, Alice, and struck up a friendship. She eventually moved to rural Alabama, right next door to the Lee sisters, and got to know them over a few years. She wrote this book about Harper Lee and her family, the context for TKaM, and her experiences in the South. Unfortunately, controversy surrounds this book. In her later life, Harper Lee said that Mills had exploited her and her sister, but Alice denies this. I side with Marja Mills and Alice on this one.
All in all, it was very interesting book about Harper Lee and her context in the South.
* AB This Time Together: Laughter and Reflection, Carol Burnett
Carol Burnett is a well-known TV personality and comedian. This book is a series of short chapters about many different experiences of hers, some of them questionable, a few sad, and many hilarious! She shares stories from her childhood days, Broadway days, TV show days, and recent days. She also talks about hilarious encounters and misunderstandings with famous people such as Carey Grant, Julie Andrews, and Lucille Ball. Carol Burnett reads the book herself for the audio version, and it is great.
Etc.
The Girl in the Red Coat: A Memoir, Roma Ligocka with Iris von Finckenstein; Margo Bettauer Dembo, translator
Shaunna: Do you want to have a small book club?
Me: Okay.
*we read one book over a series of a few months*
Well, that didn't last long! It was fun, though. :)
This book was suggested to me by Irene, who was tickled when I told her Shaunna and I were going to read it. It is the true story of a Polish Jewish family caught up in World War II. The mother and daughter are not sent to the camps, but the father was taken away to a work camp, I think. This is the story of their life during World War II and the years following.
This was an interesting book, though not uplifting or inspirational. The most interesting part to me was the memory about returning to school after the war. The school was filled with traumatized children who acted and reacted in all sorts of unpredictable ways, led by a teacher who herself was traumatized. How sad! How daunting!
Honeybee: Poems and Short Prose, Naomi Shihab Nye
I found this book at the OKC book sale last year and read it before sending it off to one of my friends (who had inspired me to read Nye's work in the first place). As a book of poems and short prose, it doesn't tell a single linear story. I haven't read much poetry, but so far, Naomi Shihab Nye is my favorite poet.
One poem:
The United States Is Not the World
and this I was reminded of by
mamas in silk saris
grandpas in burgundy turbans,
smoky overcoats
Sikh boys with powder-puff topknots
braided girls munching Belgian chocolate
and a gloomy little lad with a strange
golden cone on his head
Thank you, I said. O thank you Gate
D-4, Amsterdam to Delhi
months of smug Americana dissolving
quickly
as tiny white no-jetlag pills
on the tongue
 |
| via Amazon |
One of Naomi Shihab Nye's stories includes the line, "On the night the first car crashed into their home, they were both sleeping." Wait, the first car? Yep.
IAYTTAYOK is a book of short chapters, all dealing with some kind of car or transportation. She talks with taxi drivers, worries about her son as he bounces around the bed of his grandpa's truck on a country lane, tells about running over a brick mailbox while her friend was driving another friend's car, and escaping from a potential kidnapper (don't take rides from strangers, kids!). I really like this one.
Peace Child, Don Richardson
The Richardsons moved to a rural part of Papua New Guinea to share the gospel with an unreached people group. They had a hard time communicating the gospel to this group because of ingrained cultural values that were contrary to the values of Christ. Eventually God revealed the key to their understanding, and the tribe was transformed by the gospel.
The big idea that I pulled from this book was God's kindness and grace in providing a cultural key in every group of people that can be used to unlock the truth in a uniquely effective way.
Operation Ajax: The Story of the CIA Coup that Remade the Middle East, Daniel Burwen (artwork) and Mike de Seve (text)
This is a graphic novel telling the story of the US- and UK-sponsored coup in Iran in 1953. The US and the UK were interested in exploiting Iran's oil resources. When Mohammed Mossadegh and others figured out what was going on, they nationalized the oil industry. The US and UK worked with people within and without Iran to destabilize and eventually overthrow Mossadegh and the fledgling Iranian democracy...and the Middle East was never the same.
This graphic novel was inspired in part by Steven Kinzer's book All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror.
Humans of New York: Stories, Brandon Stanton
Brandon Stanton runs a famous blog and Facebook page, filled with images and stories of everyday people he meets in New York (or Iran...or Turkey...or Ohio...or, currently, Argentina). This is his second book of selected pictures and stories.
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| Pokeweed...it's poisonous |
I have decided that I like annotated books. I read Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography of Laura Ingalls Wilder in 2015, and I read the annotated notes in The Annotated Little Women in 2016 (I didn't finish all of the articles in the Little Women book).
Anyway, I really, really enjoyed Annotated Anne, though it took me a while to get through it all. In the course of my reading, I learned about pokeweed (and discovered that it grows here in Oklahoma, too), the Scottish heritage of Prince Edward Island, the treatment of orphans in the early 1900s, and many other interesting things...that I can't remember right now. :P I thought the articles in the back of the book were fascinating. This book was very well done.
# Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis, J.D. Vance
One of the books of the year. J.D. Vance weaves cultural and economic commentary in with his personal experiences. J.D. grew up in unstable environment, to put it mildly. His mother was an addict, an emotional abuser, and a serial girlfriend/wife. The constants in J.D.'s life were his sister and his grandparents, and their belief in him made all the difference. In spite of the poverty, the upheaval, the emotional abuse, the instability, and the suppressed anger, J.D. broke the vicious cycle and is a successful lawyer and author today. He is not a Christian...or at least not yet.
Some observations:
He is a political conservative, despite the welfare system being created for families like his
This is the first non-fiction book that I've read that was written by a peer (he was born in 1984)
This book really helps explain the viewpoint of those angry, middle class, white people we have heard so much about
There is a reference to Harry Potter (J.D. mentioned that he read a lot as a kid, and I was waiting for him to mention Harry Potter...which he did, haha!)
Highly recommended; Amos read it, too.
Rereads
In the order I read them...
* AB Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, J.K. Rowling
* AB Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, J.K. Rowling
* AB Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, J.K. Rowling
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| via Amazon |
* AB Ramona Forever, Beverly Cleary
*# AB Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, J.K. Rowling
* AB Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, J.K. Rowling
* AB Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, J.K. Rowling
*# AB Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, J.K. Rowling
* AB Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, J.K. Rowling
* AB Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, J.K. Rowling
*# AB Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, J.K. Rowling
* AB Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, J.K. Rowling
* AB Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, J.K. Rowling
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| via Amazon |
The last time I "reviewed" Lila, I did not do it justice. I love this book. It is beautiful.
Lila is "stolen" by a woman named Doll. Her life is one of upheaval and deprivation as she and Doll toil as migrant workers during the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl. Through a series of circumstances that I don't want to give away, Lila arrives in Gilead, Iowa. There she meets a kind, old pastor and marries him, though she is much younger. As she is expecting their child, Lila thinks back on her life, wondering at the meaning of it all and wondering if she can trust both the old man and herself with this next stage in her life.
The story moves backward and forward in time as Lila reflects on her past life and adjusts to her new one. This is not a light read, and it takes concentration, but I love it.
A word to the wise: Do not listen to this as an audiobook. The narrator sounds stiff and odd; the voice you give Lila in your head will be much better. :)
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