Sunday, January 30, 2005
More Books - Mostly from Book Club Readings
The Tea Rose - I loved this book. The Tea Rose tells the story of 17-year-old Fiona Finnegan and her beau, Joe Bristow. Fiona, a worker in a tea factory, and Joe, a coster in his family's produce business, have big dreams of opening their own tea shop one day. Saving money from every paycheck into an old cocoa tin, Fiona and Joe slowly get closer to realizing their dream. But things don't always work out they way they're planned -- the unionization of labor workers, a serial murderer on the loose, and a scheming buxom blonde play their part in destroying everything Fiona and Joe has worked for.
The Education of Little Tree - My boss suggested I read this. Very good lessons to be learned. A must read - just for the lessons. The Education of Little Tree tells of a boy orphaned very young, who is adopted by his Cherokee grandmother and half-Cherokee grandfather in the Appalachian mountains of Tennessee during the Great Depression. “Little Tree” as his grandparents call him is shown how to hunt and survive in the mountains, to respect nature in the Cherokee Way, taking only what is needed, leaving the rest for nature to run its course. Little Tree also learns the often callous ways of the white businessmen and tax collectors, and how Granpa, in hilarious vignettes, scares them away from his illegal attempts to enter the cash economy. Granma teaches Little Tree the joys of reading and education. But when Little Tree is taken away for schooling by whites, we learn of the cruelty meted out to Indian children in an attempt to assimilate them and of Little Tree’s perception of the Anglo world and how it differs from the Cherokee Way.
The Kitchen God's Wife - I love every one of Amy Tan's books. This one is about a mother and daughter and secrets.
Angela's Ashes - This book is amazing. I loved every word, and could not put it down. The memoir of Frank McCourt, born in Depression-era Brooklyn to recent Irish immigrants and raised in the slums of Limerick, Ireland. Frank's mother, Angela, has no money to feed the children since Frank's father, Malachy, rarely works, and when he does he drinks his wages. Yet Malachy -- exasperating, irresponsible and beguiling -- does nurture in Frank an appetite for the one thing he can provide: a story. Frank lives for his father's tales of Cuchulain, who saved Ireland, and of the Angel on the Seventh Step, who brings his mother babies.
Perhaps it is story that accounts for Frank's survival. Wearing rags for diapers, begging a pig's head for Christmas dinner and gathering coal from the roadside to light a fire, Frank endures poverty, near-starvation and the casual cruelty of relatives and neighbors -- yet lives to tell his tale with eloquence, exuberance and remarkable forgiveness
Outlander - You know, this story got old, fast. But so many other people loved it, and all of Diana Gabaldon's books. It just wasn't that believeable to me, and I could not 'get' the Scot accent at all. The epic tale begins when Claire Randall, a young combat nurse in World War II, moves to Scotland with her beloved husband to re-ignite their marriage interrupted by the war. Hiking one day, Claire accidentally passes through the stones of an ancient stone circle and wakes up to find herself in 16th century Scotland. Lost, alone, and confused (yet, determined), Claire's path crosses, and is inextricably linked to, a young Highland warrior, James Fraser. (The kind of man women want, and men want to BE.)
A Painted House - Not my favorite Grisham book, but good enough to read. Seven-year old Luke Chandler lives on a cotton farm with his parents and grandparents in rural Arkansas in 1952. Every year, his family hires hill people and Mexican field hands to help the harvest the 80 acres of cotton they own. This summer is different though for Luke as the workers move onto the farm. The Chandler family must deal with weather, lack of money, and two dangerous men who help them in the fields
A Girl Named Zippy- The book grew on me, and in the end I loved Zippy. When Haven Kimmel was born in 1965, Mooreland, Indiana, was a sleepy little hamlet of three hundred people. Nicknamed "Zippy" for the way she would bolt around the house, this small girl was possessed of big eyes and even bigger ears. In this witty and lovingly told memoir, Kimmel takes readers back to a time when small-town America was caught in the amber of the innocent postwar period–people helped their neighbors, went to church on Sunday, and kept barnyard animals in their backyards.
Salem Falls - The ending surprised me. Good read. Jack St. Bride comes to Salem Falls, N.H., after his release from prison. The former teacher and soccer coach wants to start a new life following a wrongful conviction for statutory rape. Unfortunately, Salem Falls turns out to be the wrong place to do it. He has no trouble landing a job at the local diner and winning the trust of the diner's eccentric owner, Addie, but the rest of the town is suspicious. Things get dangerous when manipulative 17-year-old Gillian Duncan, whose father owns half the town, gets interested in Jack and tries to seduce him with Wiccan love spells. Then Gillian is assaulted in the woods, and Jack is accused of the crime. As the courtroom battle unfolds, many secrets are revealed, and Picoult's characters are forced to confront the difference between who people are and who they say they are.
Suzanne's Diary for Nicholas - A Girl's Book. Love Story. Good. Drawn against her will into the other woman's world, Katie learns of physician Suzanne's heart attack at age 35 and her decision to slow down, accomplished by a move to Martha's Vineyard and a new job as a simple country doctor. When love comes knocking, in the form of housepainter/poet Matt Harrison, Suzanne is ready to listen to her newly repaired heart. Though painful for Katie, she begins to know and like Suzanne and her infant son Nicholas.
The Color of Water - A Black Man's Tribute to his white mother. I had forgetten that I read this book last year. My SIL reminded me when she thanked me for the recommendation the other day! Tt is a wonderful story of a bi-racial family who succeeded and achieved the American dream, despite the societal obstacles placed in its way.
The Education of Little Tree - My boss suggested I read this. Very good lessons to be learned. A must read - just for the lessons. The Education of Little Tree tells of a boy orphaned very young, who is adopted by his Cherokee grandmother and half-Cherokee grandfather in the Appalachian mountains of Tennessee during the Great Depression. “Little Tree” as his grandparents call him is shown how to hunt and survive in the mountains, to respect nature in the Cherokee Way, taking only what is needed, leaving the rest for nature to run its course. Little Tree also learns the often callous ways of the white businessmen and tax collectors, and how Granpa, in hilarious vignettes, scares them away from his illegal attempts to enter the cash economy. Granma teaches Little Tree the joys of reading and education. But when Little Tree is taken away for schooling by whites, we learn of the cruelty meted out to Indian children in an attempt to assimilate them and of Little Tree’s perception of the Anglo world and how it differs from the Cherokee Way.
The Kitchen God's Wife - I love every one of Amy Tan's books. This one is about a mother and daughter and secrets.
Angela's Ashes - This book is amazing. I loved every word, and could not put it down. The memoir of Frank McCourt, born in Depression-era Brooklyn to recent Irish immigrants and raised in the slums of Limerick, Ireland. Frank's mother, Angela, has no money to feed the children since Frank's father, Malachy, rarely works, and when he does he drinks his wages. Yet Malachy -- exasperating, irresponsible and beguiling -- does nurture in Frank an appetite for the one thing he can provide: a story. Frank lives for his father's tales of Cuchulain, who saved Ireland, and of the Angel on the Seventh Step, who brings his mother babies.
Perhaps it is story that accounts for Frank's survival. Wearing rags for diapers, begging a pig's head for Christmas dinner and gathering coal from the roadside to light a fire, Frank endures poverty, near-starvation and the casual cruelty of relatives and neighbors -- yet lives to tell his tale with eloquence, exuberance and remarkable forgiveness
Outlander - You know, this story got old, fast. But so many other people loved it, and all of Diana Gabaldon's books. It just wasn't that believeable to me, and I could not 'get' the Scot accent at all. The epic tale begins when Claire Randall, a young combat nurse in World War II, moves to Scotland with her beloved husband to re-ignite their marriage interrupted by the war. Hiking one day, Claire accidentally passes through the stones of an ancient stone circle and wakes up to find herself in 16th century Scotland. Lost, alone, and confused (yet, determined), Claire's path crosses, and is inextricably linked to, a young Highland warrior, James Fraser. (The kind of man women want, and men want to BE.)
A Painted House - Not my favorite Grisham book, but good enough to read. Seven-year old Luke Chandler lives on a cotton farm with his parents and grandparents in rural Arkansas in 1952. Every year, his family hires hill people and Mexican field hands to help the harvest the 80 acres of cotton they own. This summer is different though for Luke as the workers move onto the farm. The Chandler family must deal with weather, lack of money, and two dangerous men who help them in the fields
A Girl Named Zippy- The book grew on me, and in the end I loved Zippy. When Haven Kimmel was born in 1965, Mooreland, Indiana, was a sleepy little hamlet of three hundred people. Nicknamed "Zippy" for the way she would bolt around the house, this small girl was possessed of big eyes and even bigger ears. In this witty and lovingly told memoir, Kimmel takes readers back to a time when small-town America was caught in the amber of the innocent postwar period–people helped their neighbors, went to church on Sunday, and kept barnyard animals in their backyards.
Salem Falls - The ending surprised me. Good read. Jack St. Bride comes to Salem Falls, N.H., after his release from prison. The former teacher and soccer coach wants to start a new life following a wrongful conviction for statutory rape. Unfortunately, Salem Falls turns out to be the wrong place to do it. He has no trouble landing a job at the local diner and winning the trust of the diner's eccentric owner, Addie, but the rest of the town is suspicious. Things get dangerous when manipulative 17-year-old Gillian Duncan, whose father owns half the town, gets interested in Jack and tries to seduce him with Wiccan love spells. Then Gillian is assaulted in the woods, and Jack is accused of the crime. As the courtroom battle unfolds, many secrets are revealed, and Picoult's characters are forced to confront the difference between who people are and who they say they are.
Suzanne's Diary for Nicholas - A Girl's Book. Love Story. Good. Drawn against her will into the other woman's world, Katie learns of physician Suzanne's heart attack at age 35 and her decision to slow down, accomplished by a move to Martha's Vineyard and a new job as a simple country doctor. When love comes knocking, in the form of housepainter/poet Matt Harrison, Suzanne is ready to listen to her newly repaired heart. Though painful for Katie, she begins to know and like Suzanne and her infant son Nicholas.
The Color of Water - A Black Man's Tribute to his white mother. I had forgetten that I read this book last year. My SIL reminded me when she thanked me for the recommendation the other day! Tt is a wonderful story of a bi-racial family who succeeded and achieved the American dream, despite the societal obstacles placed in its way.
# posted by Gina @ 3:56 PM 
