• About the Author
  • Charity of the Month
  • Entertainment
  • Books
  • Cooking
  • Discussions on Development
  • DIY
  • Parenting

Finca Cielo Azul

Finca Cielo Azul

Tag Archives: reading

Literate Lushes (August 2017 to July 2018)

25 Wednesday Jul 2018

Posted by Alex in book review, books, Literate Lushes, reading, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

book club, books, Literate Lushes, reading

This seems to be an annual post…here we go.

August: The Song of Achilles, A Novel, by Madeline Miller.  As I mentioned in my last Literate Lushes post, I couldn’t put this book down.  I started reading it was I waited to board the plane to Florida for one of my best friend’s weddings, and finished it in the uber on the way to the hotel (in between getting pulled over and telling the office my name so he didn’t think I was the female that had a restraining order against my uber driver).  It is a heartbreaking rendition of a Greek classic.

September: The Underground Railroad, by Colson Whitehead.  This past year has been the year of some pretty heavy books.  This book was recommended by a dear friend of mine, and I’m so glad I chose it as my book club pick.  The title is self-describing, but it goes into heartbreaking detail on the tragedies suffered by people in slavery.  I still can’t wrap my head around how cruel people can be to one another.  I feel like we all learned a lot from this historical fiction book, and our discussion was great.

October: Salem’s Lot, by Stephen King.  A nice and easy vampire read for the Halloween month!  Slavery followed by vampires wasn’t exactly what the doctor called for, but it was a nice change of pace and a good read.

December: The Girl With All The Gifts, by M. R. Carey.  So slavery followed by vampires followed by zombies!  Another book that I would have never picked to read on my own, but once I started it I couldn’t put it down.  An interesting spin on the zombie story line, with an ending that I couldn’t stop thinking about for days.  I heard that’s a second book to this series that I have yet to get back to.

January: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot.  A non-fiction story on the first immortal strand of cultured DNA (I’m not a science person, so possibly the worst science lack of terminology there, but…maybe 80% correct), and how it was obtained without consent from an African American woman in 1951.  A truly amazing story, and the conflict between morality, medicine, and racism (and so many other things).  The science-y parts bogged me down a bit, but an enthralling story nonetheless.

February: Turtles All The Way Down, by John Green.  This one really took me a while to get into.  It’s a young adult novel written in the first person, so sometimes the thought dialogue was a bit hard for me to keep reading/listening to.  I did up the speed on my audible on this one which made it more bearable.  But once I got a third of the way in or so, it made me realize how hard it must be to have some form of OCD or depression or anxiety.  It was good to be in someone else’s shoes to try to understand the difficulties that face others-we just never know how hard something can be for someone else.

March: The Night Circus, by Erin Morgenstern.  After all the intense books we’d read in the months prior, this was such a pleasant and nice read.  Just a love story full of magic and time travel (story lines, not actual time travel).  This book totally had me hooked and I loved the ending.

April: The Hiding Place, by Corrie Ten Boom.  Another emotionally difficult book, this one about the holocaust and work/extermination camps.  This book started a little slow, but the storyline picked up a little bit, and then it was just astounding, once again, to read about how horrible people can be to each other.

May: Norse Mythology, by Neil Gaiman.  This book was a collection of short stories, which is not my most favorite, but it was cool to read some new and some familiar about Norse mythology.  Jake is starting to get into the Avengers, so reading stories about Thor and Loki were pretty cool.  The audible version is narrated by Neil Gaiman, and he did a great job.

July, White Chrysanthemum, by Mary Lynn Bracht. Have I mentioned heart breaking?  I almost didn’t continue reading this book-it starts with a pretty heavy amount of rape and sexual abuse, and it’s the first book I’ve considered not finishing because it was just hard to listen to.  This book is about the Japanese occupation of Korea, and the only reason I continued reading it was because I thought it was important for me to read about what happened.  I’ve never studied anything about this chapter of history, and my goodness, how awful.  How a human being can endure so much pain is just beyond me.  But, a great read and a wonderfully told story.

Bonus reads:

Drinking Coffee Elsewhere, by ZZ Packer.  This was a pretty quick read.  I saw it highly recommended somewhere online and thought I would give it a try.  Like I mentioned above, I’m not a fan of short stories, so this book was a little disappointing in that respect.  Each individual story had a little heart break, but kind of like Small Great Things, helps to put me in someone else’s shoes, shoes that I’m thankful I haven’t had to walk in.

Capital Gaines, by Chip Gaines.  A fun, quick read.  We’re obsessed with Chip and Joanna over here, so it was nice to learn a little more about them and gain some insight on how they’ve become so successful.

My Grandmother Asked Me To Tell You She’s Sorry, by Fredrik Backman.  Another great read from Fredrik Backman.  I really do love his style of writing, and the characters in his stories.  Britt Marie comes back in this one, and she’s hilarious and heartbreaking yet again.  And again, I laughed, and I cried.

The Keeper of Lost Things, by Ruth Hogan.  This was a great light read, that got me through some of the heavier books listed above.  Just a light hearted story that follows two different story lines, that end up intertwining at the end (in a way that I think was very obvious if I had read more carefully, but thankfully caught me by surprise).

What have you been reading lately?  Or in the last year? :-P

 

Literate Lushes (February to July, 2017) and more!

06 Thursday Jul 2017

Posted by Alex in book review, books, Literate Lushes, reading, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

book club, books, novels, reading

I recently moved on to Audible.  I still would MUCH prefer the actual book, but realized I just am not able to read as much as I’d like when it requires having a book in my hand.  I come home for lunch every day, so decided to try the audio route and I’m averaging almost two books a month now, rather than just scraping by one.  I know, WOW right?  TWO WHOLE BOOKS, haha.  I’m pretty impressed with myself though, haha.  So, here we go.

February: Catch 22, by Joseph Heller.  I think this was before my transition to Audible, so I did not get around to reading this one.  I remember reading it in high school though and fairly liking it…

March: Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America’s Class War, by Joe Bageant.  This was my pick.  I was really trying to look for something to explain the Trump phenomena and how he got elected: I really do want to understand why so many people voted for him (I know, not a majority of our country, but still…a lot of people thought he was a good option) and what they’re feeling.  After I picked and started reading this book I realized that it’s actually quite old, which made Trump’s election even more frustrating: we’ve known what’s been wrong for a long time and have done nothing to address those issues.  The book wasn’t everything I was looking for, but it did provide some good insight and a different point a view to certain arguments (like the right to bear arms).  All in all, I thought it was worth reading, although I’d love suggestions on anything along this topic that is more recent.

April: The Storied Life of A.J. Fickry, by Gabrielle Zevin & Scott Brick.  This was a nice read.  Mostly light, with some twists and turns, but above all the story of the love you can have for a child (even if not biologically yours).  There were a couple small points that bothered me but I think they would give too much away, so I’ll keep them to myself.  I do believe I cried a little towards the end.

June: Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the F.B.I., by David Grann.  This book was GREAT.  I did read it through Audible and the first voice was difficult to handle, but it was still a great book (I don’t understand why readers have to use different voices for the different characters-it’s quite annoying).  The story is told from three different perspectives, and tells the true story of a plot to murder Native American’s for their “head rights” to oil and mineral reserves in Oklahoma (I think it’s Oklahoma…).  It’s a sad story but great to finally learn about it, and this book has inspired me to read more historical books.

July: Defending Jacob: A Novel, by William Landay.  I’m still reading this one, but I’m not enjoying it too much, unfortunately.  There’s A LOT of dialogue which I’m not enjoying, and I think this is one of the few times that I just don’t like how the author writes.  The plot seems to drag a bit for me too, but I’m hoping the end will have a good twist that will make it worth it to keep listening, haha.

EXTRAS (thanks Audible!)

Small Great Things: A Novel, by Jodi Picoult.  I can’t rave enough about this book.  I think it should be required reading.  It touches on so many issues that we have on race relations in the United States, and definitely gave me another perspective to see and analyze things through.  It made me cry, cringe, cry some more, and smile a little.  Did I mention already how great I think this book is?  You should read it now.

Britt-Marie Was Here: A Novel, by Fredrik Backman.  One quick side bar observation: I’ve apparently been reading a lot of novels!  This is from the same author as A Man Called Ove.  As great as A Man Called Ove was, I really, truly, think this book is so much BETTER.  Another book that I can’t recommend enough.  This book made me laugh out loud, smile, and cry.  It has the full range of emotions.  It’s so well written and tells such a great story of human interaction and compassion, and the inevitability of some things in life.  Oh, and the power of soccer!  Warms my heart just thinking about it again.

When Breath Becomes Air, by Paul Kalanithi.  This is the real life story of a man who gets diagnosed with lung cancer at a very young age, and he decided to write this book.  I thought it was good, but not great.  I don’t think I ever quite found what I was looking for in this book…it seemed like he was building up to something but just never got there.  I do think my favorite part of the book was the end that his wife ended up writing.  It’s still a good read to appreciate the life we have, and to understand just how quickly things can change for any of us, so embrace the now, life your life to the fullest and do the things you want to do.

I will give the disclaimer that this post is NOT sponsored by Audible…but it should be.

Books I’d like to read in the near future:

  • Who am I kidding.  I just looked at my Amazon and Audible wish lists and there’s too many to list, and this post has already taken me the span of four days to write, so I’m just gonna hit the publish button now before one of the boys wakes up from their nap.

What have you been reading lately?

Literate Lushes: June 2015-January 2017

13 Friday Jan 2017

Posted by Alex in blog, book review, books, Literate Lushes, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

book club, book review, books, reading

Wow, I have over a year and a half to update, so I’ll keep the commentary to a minimum and just catch everyone up on our reading list…

June: If I Stay, by Gayle Forman

July: A Wild Ride Through the Night, by Walter Moers

September: A Good and Happy Child, by Justin Evans

November: Broken Monsters, by Lauren Beukes

December: The Girl on the Train, by Paula Hawkins

January: Far From the Tree, by Andrew Solomon

February: Me Talk Pretty One Day, by Dave Sedaris

April: A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, by Dave Eggers

This one generated a lot of discussion…

May: To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee

June: The Cuckoo’s Calling, by Robert Galbraith

I really liked this book and I hope I get around to reading the sequels someday.

July: Many Lives Many Masters, by Brian L. Weiss

August: All the Light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr

I absolutely LOVED this book.

October: Mothers Reckoning: Living in the Aftermath of a Tragedy, by Sue Klebold 

November: Voices in the Night, by Steven Millhauser

I wasn’t a huge fan. But I did discover the use of audio books with this book, and it’s been a game changer.

January: A Man Called Ove, by Fredrik Backman

Loved, loved, loved.

Bonus: because thanks to audio books, I listen to them while I pump at work and on my way to work and home.  It’s not quite the same as reading them myself, but it’s better than not reading at all.  I do think this is pretty life changing for me…so, I finished our January book with time to spare and decided to start reading Yes, Please by Amy Poehler.  An enjoyable “read” so far!

I also missed reading quite a few of these books…with having a toddler, then being pregnant, then adjusting to life with two kids…time was harder to find and I was much pickier about what books I chose to read.  I’ll usually give anything a try, and I’m really looking forward to Literate Lushes in 2017 and hopefully reading all the books that we pick, and MORE!  I have so many books written down in the Notes section of my phone and it would be nice to scratch some off instead of just continuously adding more books I want to read.

Literate Lushes: December 2014-April 2015

03 Wednesday Jun 2015

Posted by Alex in book review, books, reading

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

And the Mountains Echoed, book club, books, Dark Places, Every Day is for the Thief, If I stay, Illusions, literature, On The Road, reading

December: Dark Places, by Gillian Flynn

Same author as Gone Girl, our pick from March (2013).  This book was pretty dark, but it was a nice, suspenseful read!  It’s honestly been so long that I don’t remember the details of our book club discussion, but some minor things aside, I think most of us enjoyed reading this one.

January: On the Road, by Jack Kerouc

It’s a classic, but I never got around to reading it.  I read the first few pages, but it didn’t grab me from the get-go and it was such a busy time that I just never went back to it.  I hope I do some day, I love reading “classic” books just so I can be in the know!

February: Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah, by Richard Back

Again….I failed at reading this one…but I still feel like I should give you guys a complete listing of the books that other people in the Literate Lushes have read ;)  Even though I didn’t finish this book either, I did like what I read, and the discussion at book club was actually quite excellent.

March: And the Mountains Echoed, by Khaled Hosseini

Most people have probably already read this book or are at least familiar with it.  I could not put this book down once I started it.  Although I tried at the beginning because it opens with a heart-wrenching story–I almost didn’t want to keep going, but I’m glad I did.  I think the author did a great job with this one, sharing different stories from the perspective of different characters (one chapter is even a letter from one character to another).  The basis of the story is how one act can have repercussions that last a lifetime, and that affect people around the world.  It was sad and uplifting at the same time.

April: Every Day is for the Thief, by Teju Cole

This was my pick.  I heard about it on NPR and it sounded amazing.  I like picking books that expose me to something different or allow me to see/understand a different culture or country: this book takes place in Nigeria, and revolves around the main character returning to visit Nigeria after he’s been living in the U.S. for a while.  The book had promise but it wasn’t written very well: it was almost a little House on Mango Street vignette-esque, and I just am not a fan of short stories, especially when it’s supposed to be one long story.  The author had so many opportunities to grab your attention, but failed every time.  You never got a chance to really get into the book, it seemed like you were always just reading the first couple chapters of the book.  However, it did provide for amazing discussion points during book club about democracy, development, poverty, education, access to self-improvement, cultural differences, etc., which I LOVED, so I’m still happy with my pick :)

Next up: If I stay, by Gayle Forman

Don’t forget: if you shop on Amazon for these books or ANYTHING else, please shop through smile.amazon.com and select Haiti Scholarships as your charity of choice!

Charity of the Month: The Uni Project

21 Wednesday May 2014

Posted by Alex in books, charity, Charity of the Month, non-profit, reading

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

books, charity, children, children's books, community, nonprofit, NYC, reading

Uni projectI came across this, and thought it was pretty awesome: portable libraries!  I’ve always been a huge fan of books, and believe in the power they have to transform the lives of the people that read them.

The Uni Project “is a nonprofit committed to increasing access to books and learning opportunities through pop-up, open-air reading rooms.”

It’s mostly in New York City, but if you want to set up your own portable library they send you a reading room kit, which is so cool!

The Uni Project provides many ways to get involved: you can donate books, make a donation to help support a new or existing reading room, provide your time by volunteering as a librarian, or set up your own reading room in your local neighborhood!

 

reading room

Literate Lushes Book Reads: February-May 2014

26 Saturday Apr 2014

Posted by Alex in book review, books, Literate Lushes, reading

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Arturo Perez-Reverte, book club, books, Eighty Days, Jonathan Tropper, Matthew Goodwin, Paula McLain, Queen of the South, reading, The Paris Wife, This is Where I Leave You

It’s been a good few months for the Literate Lushes, we’ve had some great book choices and I’ve really enjoyed reading them!

Picking up where we left off…

eighty days

February: Eighty Days: Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland’s History Making Around the World, by Matthew Goodwin 

Well, the extended title kind of explains it all, haha.  This story is based on two real women who were some of the first female reporters in the United States.  They embarked on a trip around the world (Nellie Bly wasn’t aware it was a race until she touched ground again on the California coast after sailing from the East coast) in a time when travel was limited and challenged by how long it took to travel at sea, boat schedules, inclement weather, not to mention a nasty monkey!  The book was definitely interesting and caught my full attention at first, but then seemed to drag on a bit.  But overall I thought it was a great book–so many interesting tidbits of knowledge from all over the world that were great to read about (like the fact that before uniform time zones were instituted, each state could be on over a dozen different times, or that Nellie Bly was one of the first people to wear a “clock on a leather band” rather than a carry a pocket watch).  If you’re a history nerd, I think you’ll definitely enjoy this book.

this is wehre

March: This is Where I Leave You, by Jonathan Tropper

This might not have been everyone’s favorite book, but I really enjoyed it.  Basically the main character’s father dies, he has to sit shiva with his extremely dysfunctional family, all soon after he walks in on his wife cheating on him with his asshole boss.  Among other things.  Most of the time I’m not a fan of story lines where the main character gets shit on over and over and over again, but in this case, I enjoyed reading about his at-times-comical and at-times-tragic life events.  I wasn’t a huge fan of the ending, but other Literate Lushes seemed to enjoy that the most.  Although it was sometimes so outside of reality (as one Literate Lush pointed out–there’s no way that every single person in the family is that messed up), I really enjoyed reading it.  Plus is was a pretty quick read, which was a nice follow up to Eight Days ;)

the paris wife

April: The Paris Wife, by Paula McLain

Another book based on reality (and I think a bestseller, so this one is probably well known), this book is based on Ernest Hemingway’s first wife.  This book was great, and heartbreaking.  It starts with the couple meeting and running to Paris so Hemingway could pursue his writing career, and follows them through their first years of marriage and the difficulties that faced them as Hemingway’s career began to take off, and the sacrifices his wife had to make in order to allow him to focus on his career.  I fell in love with Hemingway’s wife, and found myself getting super mad at Hemingway every time I read how he mistreated her (emotionally, not physically) or hurt her feelings.  Sometimes what bothered me more was that she wasn’t hurt by some of his actions: she put his career ahead of everything, including herself.  The failure of their marriage was something that stuck with me for a couple days after I finished reading it–it makes you realize how fragile human relationships can be, and that is scary!

queen of the south

May: Queen of the South, by Arturo Perez-Reverte

This was my month to choose.  And it’s so hard!  I always feel like I need to pick a book that brings attention to some world issue, or poverty, or problems in third world countries.  But I also want everyone to enjoy what they’re reading, rather than feel like they’re in high school again, forced to read The Old Man and The Sea. So this month I chose to compromise a little: I went with a novel, but one written by a Latin American author, and one that write about a very real problem faced in Mexico: the drug trade and the violence of the drug cartels.  Teresa, the main character, starts off as the girlfriend of a popular cartel Cessna pilot, and ends up fleeing to Spain in order to save her life.  I’m half way through the book, and I find myself at times unable to put it down, and at other times skimming through trying to get to the next interesting story line.  We’ll see how it ends!

Books I Want to Read

04 Wednesday Dec 2013

Posted by Alex in books, reading

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

books, children's books, cook book, nerd alert, reading

Here’s a list of books that’s on my “to read” list, but that I probably won’t read for a long time.  If any of you do or have read them, please let me know what you think so I can prioritize my list :)

The Reason I Jump: The Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism, by Naoki Higashida.  I heard about this book on The Daily Show, and Jon Stewart just couldn’t say enough about how great this book is.  It piqued my interest.

Julie Andrews’ Collection of Poems, Songs & Lullabies, by Julie Andrews and her daughter, Emma Walton Hamilton.  I came across this while looking at some of Julie Andrews’ other children books, but they’re all for girls…I think this might be more up Jake’s alley :)  Reviews look awesome!

julie andrews

In the Company of the Poor: Conversations with Dr. Paul Farmer and Fr. Gustavo Gutierrez, by Paul Farmer, Gustavo Gutierrez, and Michael Griffin.  This is the uber nerd in me, but also one of those books that will probably be at the bottom of my list for a while.

Paddle Your Own Canoe: One Man’s Fundamentals for Delicious Living, by Nick Offerman.  Ron Swanson.  Need I say more?

paddle your canoe

The Sugar Barons: Family, Corruption, Empire, and War in the West Indies, by Matthew Parker.  A few years ago I read Bananas: How the United Fruit Company Shaped the World.  It was a short read, but really interesting and enlightening.  I figure the history of sugar must be just as interesting.

Mrs. Dalloway, by Virginia Wolf.  Why not throw in a kind of classic in there?

Sam the Cooking Guy: Just a Bunch of Recipes, by Sam Zien.  Back when Jeff and I had our apartment, and basic cable, we were limited to about five channels.  One of which had Sam the Cooking Guy.  Jeff and I love watching his show, and this is definitely a cook book I want to add to my kitchen collection.  Even if I use it as sparingly as my other cook books…

cooking guy

The Literate Lushes Updates

03 Tuesday Dec 2013

Posted by Alex in book review, books, Literate Lushes, reading

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Ann Rule, book club, books, fiction, Joan Didion, Neil Gaiman, non-fiction, reading

Well, it’s been a while since I updated this section.  To be honest, since having Jake it’s been pretty difficult for me to fully participate in our book club, but I’ll still share with you guys the books that were chosen over these last few months.

August: The Ocean at the End of the Lane, by Neil Gaiman

Great, short read.  I think everyone in book club enjoyed reading this one.

September: Eek, I can’t remember!

October: The Stranger Beside Me: Ted Bundy, the Shocking Inside Story, by Ann Rule 

i went as far as buying this book and reading the first 10 pages or so.  It is loooooooong!  With Jake being awake more and more around this time, I just wasn’t able to make a significant dent in the book.  Not to mention: I’m a little afraid about getting creeped out by it!

November: Dictionary of the Khazars, by Miorad Pavic

Again, I didn’t get around to reading this one, but sounded like an interesting concept.

January (skipping December due to busyness): Play it as it Lays, by Joan Didion

I just got this book today, and I think I’ll be able to read this one by the time book club comes around!  Looks fairly short and simple, which I’m excited about :)

 

What are you reading these days?

The Literate Lushes Book Club Updates

06 Saturday Jul 2013

Posted by Alex in book review, books, Literate Lushes, reading

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

book club, book review, books, Confederacy of Dunces, Horns, Joe Hill, Literate Lushes, reading

As you can tell, I’m on a bit of a blogging binge…should make up for lost time (actually, it’s been a long time, so probably not entirely…).  One reason is finding the motivation, another reason (which is probably why I’ve found my motivation) is that Jeff and I got a new glider as one of our baby shower presents…so while Jeff plays his video games…I sit on our glider and type away.  It’s been quite nice!

But I digress.  The Literate Lushes is still going strong!  We’ve had some pretty heated book club sessions, which is always interesting, haha.  Here’s what we’ve read since I left off in April:

April: The Book Thief

I’ll just add that I really enjoyed this book.  As I mentioned in the last Literate Lushes update, it’s quite a sad little story, but so well told.  It’s from the perspective of Death, which gives it a really unique insight into the war and the lives of those he’s in charge of taking with him.  Surprisingly, I really ended up liking Death–he just gets a bad rap.

May: Small Acts of Resistance, by Steve Crawshaw

literate lushes may

I was debating on this book back in March, and finding nothing else worth sharing with everyone that I hadn’t already read, I decided to go with it.

The book is broken up and consists of a bunch of small little vignettes.  The consensus amongst all the Literate Lushes was that these short stories were too short.  On the one hand, it was nice to get a small taste of so many different issues/areas/geographies/historical events, but on the other hand, I wish the author would have spent more time explaining the background or outcome of these stories a little more.  His failure to do so made the beginning of the book very frustrating: hey that’s really interesting what you just shared there…but why did it happen?  what happened afterwards?  where does this issue stand now?  what happened to that guy?

Some stories further in the book got a little more detailed, but it was still a little disorganized and a bit all over the place.  Overall, however, most of us found it very interesting and I’d like to think we all learned something about important issues that we may not have known otherwise, so mission accomplished!

One other issue some of us had was that it was very anti-USA in a way.  Sure, the US of A ain’t perfect, and our government has had it’s hands in quite a few shady historical events, but the author seemed to take a lot of jabs that weren’t necessary, and you could tell it influenced his recounting of these stories.

I still recommend this book, but just know that you’ll probably have a lot more questions than answers at the end of each story (although you’ll learn some really neat tidbits along the way).

June: Horns, by Joe Hill

We decided to go with some themed decor on this one!

We decided to go with some themed decor on this one!

Random factoid, Joe Hill is Stephen King’s son.  Not that it matters, but hey, the more you know!

Anyhow, this book provided quite a bit of discussion amongst our group, although I’d venture to say that most of us really enjoyed reading it.

The basic plot is that the main character wakes up from a night of debauchery and finds that he has horns on his head.  These horns have a certain power that make people be brutally honest with him, and I mean brutally in the full sense of the word (like your mother telling you how bitter she is at you for giving her stretch marks, or your dear old grandmother telling you how much she really hates when you come around to visit).  Obviously all hell breaks lose (the book is filled with these fun little puns–maybe too many), and you follow this guy on his journey trying to figure out how/why this happened to him, and in search of the truth of a tragic event that led him to the night of debauchery that the book opens with.

The book bounces back and forth a lot between when the character was a kid, when this tragic event happened, and the present.  I thought it worked for the most part, but there was definitely a lot of jumping around.

The end seemed to confuse most of us Lushes.  I won’t go into detail since I don’t want to spoil anything, but lots of stuff happens and we weren’t quite sure how or why.

I found the book very entertaining for the most part, I thought the general concept of the book was pretty unique and enjoyed following the threads along.  In the spirit of full disclosure, I will admit that I generally have very low standards for books as far as their ability to captivate my attention.  As such, this book was intriguing enough that I had to speed through to the end to find out what happens to our unlikely character.

July: A Confederacy of Dunces, by John Kennedy Toole

Another random PSA, John Kennedy Toole received a Pulitzer Prize award for this book posthumously.  He had committed suicide before it was even published.  His mother found the transcript in his stuff, and took it to a professor at Loyola and told him he needed to read it.  Said professor eventually gave in to the incessant demands of the mother, read it, couldn’t put it down, and got it published.  Again, the more you know.

We don’t have our book club on this one for another couple weeks, so I’ll keep my thoughts to myself for now.  But in general, the book is about a guy who eats a lot of hotdogs, belches a lot, and pretty much has no sense of reality, haha.

Until next time, happy reading!

 

Introducing: The Literate Lushes

29 Friday Mar 2013

Posted by Alex in book review, books, Literate Lushes, reviews, series

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

book club, books, reading

Back in February, a group of friends and I decided to start our own little book club.  This has been great because as you can see from my lack of entries on the “Books” tab of this blog, I’ve kind of fallen off the reading bandwagon.  I’m also excited that this open me up to whole new genere of reading that I normally wouldn’t frequent.  In the past few years, I’ve centered my reading around non-fiction, development, Haiti, etc. types of books.  Obviously this book club leans more towards the fictional, entertaining, kind of books, which I’m excited for, for a change.

With no help from me (because let’s face, I’m just not this creative), the group came up with the name “The Literate Lushes.”  I love it!  Although I do wish I could enjoy the bottomless mimosas that we seem to center around every month!  I can’t wait until the book club when I can drink again, haha.

Anyhow, here’s what we’ve read so far:

February: A Discovery of Witches, by Deborah Harkness

This book was met with some criticism doing our inaugurational book meeting.  At first, I was one of these skeptics because it started off sounding WAY too much like another Twilight saga book, except that instead of a frail teenage girl who can’t seem to not trip over herself, you have a helpless witch that can’t use her powers to do the most basic things to protect herself.  I guess when you’re writing a book about witches, werewolves and vampires, you have to stick to the main themes surrounding those characters.  The basic premise revolves around a witch and vampire that fall in love with each other (duh), and the vampire is constantly trying to protect the witch from one attack after another.  Turns out she’s a very special witch and everyone is out to get her, dun dun duuuuun!

A couple readers of the Literate Lushes got a bit annoyed about how much detail the writer went into in describing mundane things, like curtains or couches or something.  I have a tendency to skip over a few lines or just read extra fast when I get to stuff like that, so it didn’t bother me much.

Once the book developed a bit more and diverted from the typical Bella and Edward scenario (although to be honest this did carry a bit throughout the book), and found it’s own conflict and drama, the book did get much more interesting to me.

This book is part of a three book series, of if you know me and my obsession for serial reading, I picked up the second book as soon as I was done with the first.  I won’t go into detail about that book yet because the Literate Lushes still haven’t read it and I don’t want to spoil anything.  I will say that I was very upset to finish book two and realize the third one is still being written.  Although not as upset as I was when I finished the last book available for Game of Thrones…talk about a cliffhanger!

March: Gone Girl, by Gillian Flynn

(SPOILER ALERT)

This, specifically, is one of those books that I most likely would never have read on my own accord.  The description is definitely eye catching, but I just don’t see myself actually taking off the shelf.

However, I’m glad I was forced to!  Definitely out of my usual area, but very entertaining book.  The book is about a married couple, who sees the marriage deteriorating and falling apart.  Both of them make some mistakes along the way, and the husband ends up paying a pretty high price in the end.

I think everyone except myself and the person that picked this book pretty much hated it–or so it seemed when we got together to discuss it.  When you start picking it apart–as some tend to do during a book club–you do find a lot of flaws in how the author made up the two main characters and all the madness that ensues, but from a strictly entertainment point of view, this book caught my attention about a third of the way through and was enough for me to want to finish it and figure out what happened.

I think the problem most Lushes had with this book was that you couldn’t really like either character: they both had huge flaws and faults, which made them difficult to root for.  I was pulling for the husband just because the wife was such a crazy bitch (literally…and I’m not really a fan of that combination of words), but I could see how you couldn’t even like him very much.  Not to mention, then end was pretty disappointing.  On the one hand, it was nice because it was not your typical happy ending, but on the other: I like my happy endings!

April: The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak

I won’t go into detail about this one yet because we still haven’t discussed it among the Lushes, but I will say it’s my favorite so far.  I will tell you that it’s a sad but inspiring story about a little girl growing up in Nazi Germany, trying to be a normal, poor, German girl.  That’s it for now ;)

May: ?

Guess what? I get to pick next month’s book!  I’m having trouble finding something–I’d like to find a book that combines my interest in non-profits/development/poverty, but that isn’t a huge debbie downer and that is still entertaining.  Something along the lines of Three Cups of Tea or Mountains Beyond Mountains, but I’ve already read those…

I found a book called Small Acts of Resistance: How Courage, Tenacity, and Ingenuity Can Change the World that has some potential.  Sounds inspiring to me but I’m still not convinced it’s the right fit.  I know I’m taking a risk by going with a non-fiction book, but I figure that’s the point of this book club: to expose all of us to something we wouldn’t normally read.

Anyhow, if you have any recommendations for my pick, please let me know!

Amazon Smile

Haiti Scholarships

Recent Posts

  • Finding the Right Planner
  • 2019: what’s it gonna be?
  • He’s an Armchair Expert!
  • Gift Guide for Boys!
  • Summer Roundup 2018

Archives

  • January 2019
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • July 2018
  • April 2018
  • January 2018
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • August 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • June 2015
  • March 2015
  • January 2015
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011
  • August 2011
  • July 2011
  • June 2011
  • May 2011
  • April 2011
  • March 2011
  • February 2011
  • January 2011
  • December 2010
  • November 2010
  • October 2010
  • September 2010
  • August 2010
  • July 2010
  • June 2010
  • May 2010
  • April 2010
  • March 2010
  • February 2010
  • January 2010
  • December 2009
  • November 2009
  • October 2009

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries RSS
  • Comments RSS
  • WordPress.com

Blog at WordPress.com.

Cancel