Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Shadows on the Rock

By Willa Cather

A neat little book about early settlement in Quebec. Interesting to think about what people did back then, how they lived, and what they thought. Of course, it was written in the 1930's, which adds another historical dimension. [229 pp.]

Book link

Sunday, April 15, 2012

Now is the time to open your heart

By Alice Walker

Actually, the time to update this blog was more than 3 weeks ago, when I finished reading this book. It was so long ago, I can only comment on my general impression of the book, which was pretty good. I didn't expect this kind of almost new-agey feel to an Alice Walker book, but it did have some of that, although not in an obnoxious way. [240 pp.]

Book link

Sunday, March 4, 2012

Their Eyes Were Watching God

By Zora Neale Hurston

A beautiful love story that took me a while to finish (though I did finish it a week ago), mostly because a lot of it was written in dialect. [240 pp.]

Book link

Thursday, February 9, 2012

Strand of a Thousand Pearls

By Dorit Rabinyan

It was weird reading a book that was translated from Hebrew in English. Seems like the translator did a good job, but I couldn't help re-translating it back to Hebrew. The book is okay. Not my favorite, but quite readable. I know a Hebrew teacher who was looking for an Israeli book that have been translated to English, and are less than 300 pp. long that would tell her students a little bit about what life in Israel is like. I thought about recommending this book for her class, but decided not too. They might think that all Israeli girls are obsessed with breasts... [272 pp.; finished on 5 days ago]

Book link

Saturday, February 4, 2012

Inheritance

By Natalie Danford

An interesting book about a woman following her father's past and finding disturbing stories about what he did during the war. Apart for one confusing case of inconsistent telling of facts, I found the book very well written, gripping, and enjoyable. [224 pp., actually finished a week ago, just slow to post]

Book link

Saturday, January 14, 2012

Being Dead

By Jim Crace

I probably should have guessed from the title that this book would not be easy to read. Indeed, parts of it made me wish I hadn't picked it up. But for the most part, it was a pretty good read. Very knowledgeable and insightful. But seriously, why did the death have to be so horrible (especially for poor Joseph). The descriptions of what happens to the bodies are also pretty gruesome, but again, the fall under the "informative" category. It was nice to share the time between this read and the previous one (Seven Year Switch). These books are so different, it made complete sense to move from one to the other when I couldn't take one of them anymore (Being Dead was the one I couldn't take much of, actually. Especially in the beginning).

Book link

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Seven Year Switch

By Claire Cook

A fun book that is really a page-turner! It's been a while that a reading went so fast for me. It is also informative (culture and wildlife, for example). But there are a few things that bothered me, like putting words in a 10-year old girl that don't make sense for a girl that age to say (criticizing the new star wars movies), and minor common grammatical mistakes (like using "me xxx-ing" instead of "my xxx-ing" in a sentence). They're common and minor, but they still bother me, especially in a book. Also, the end was kind of rushed, like the author tried to squeeze as much as possible in a little bit of space and time. Despite that, I enjoyed reading it. [256 pp.]


Book link