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| Favorite Book This Month (but not the only five star read) |
Read almost a book a day this month! Twenty-six . All except the two ARC memoirs were from the public library. Some really good reading lots of four and five stars on Goodreads, some got an extra half star when I put them on Library thing.
I poked around on Gutenberg, bookmarked a few, but didn't read any. I did look at a few short things online. My backlog of holds at the library just kept coming and coming and some were new with short loans & no renewals so I concentrated on the library reads.
fiction:
Every Rising Sun by Ahmed, Jamila
Kerman Province (Persia). Third Crusade (12th Century). Shaherazade. I enjoyed this even though it got a little tedious at times.
Loot by James, Tania
India late 1700s; France, England early 1800s. French watchmaker and his native apprentice in Mysore create a mechanized tiger which is subsequently looted by the Brritish. A few years later the watchmaker's ward and the apprentice attempt to recover the tiger. Many adventures along the way.
Briefly, A Delicious Life by Stevens, Nell
Chopin, George Sand, Sand's two children, and a ghost on Majorica add up to just an ok read.
Evergreen (Japantown Mystery #2) by Hirahara, Naomi
Mystery set in Boyle Heights section of Los Angeles during the post WW2 resettlement of Japanese Americans.
AnAmerican Beauty by Abé, Shana
An ok read. Biofic (more fic than bio) of Arabella Huntington whom I suspect was in reality a much more interesting character than the one in this book.
Nineteen Claws and a Black Bird by Bazterrica, Agustina; translated from the Spanish by Moses, Sarah
Interesting of offbeat, slightly macabre, short stories. Liked most of them.
The Twyford Code by Hallett, Janice
A fun mystery with a highly unreliable narrator.
Harraga by Sansal, Boualem; translated from the French by Wynne, Frank
Set in Algiers. Spinster takes in a young pregnant woman. It's a challenge for her. I liked this one.
Banyan Moon by Thai, Thao
Another pregnant young woman. This one is back home in Florida with mother grieving for her grandmother. A very good debut novel featuring three generations of Vietnamese women coming to terms with secrets that both bind and divide them.
California Golden by Benjamin, Melanie
Mother, daughter/daughter story. The 50s&60s surfing scene on Californoa and Hawaii. Not all golden sunshine--there are drugs, Viet Nam, racism, sexixm, cults. The sixties.
How to Love Your Daughter by Blum, Hila; translated from the Hebrew by Zamir, Daniella
Another good mother/daughter story. This one set in Israel and The Netherlands is told from the mother's point of view.
The Apartment by Menéndez, Ana
A Miami Beach apartment is the setting for this novel told in a series of short stories about the people who inhabited it from 1942 to 2012. I do like interrelated short stories!
Songbirds by Lefteri, Christy
This novel explores the circumstances of the women who migrate to Cyprus to work as domestics. Very well written.
The Museum of Human History by Bergman, Rebekah
Life, death, and something inbetween; a comatose girl, her twin, her father, and many others fall under the spell of the lure and dangers the biotech industry. Didn't think I'd like this but I did.
Half-Life of a Stolen Sister by Cantor, Rachel
The bio-myth of the Bronte Family. Off beat and very good.
Vanishing Maps by García, Cristina
Fun story of a Cuban family which has dispersed around the world.
Happiness Falls by Kim, Angie
A father and his teenage son Eugene who has autism & Angelman Syndrome go for a hike in a park near their home. The boy returns home but the father doesn't. Mia, the 20 year old daughter in the family, tells the story of the family coping with uncertainty, police, therapists, legal problems, guilt, the innability of the boy to speak. Well told. Even though it's a first person narrative we get a feel for what Mia's twin John and their mother are feeling.
This Other Eden by Harding, Paul
"...inspired by the true story of the once racially integrated Malaga Island off the coast of Maine." Really good.
Small Angels by Owen, Lauren
I've been waiting for years for another book by Owen. This was a treat!
Kairos by Erpenbeck, Jenny; translated from the German by Hofmann, Michael
A strange love affair set in Berlin during the end of the GDR. Stunning!
The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by McBride, James
So good! So very good! My favorite of the month. If I could give it another half star, I would.
Nonfiction:
Atlas of Forgotten Places: Journey to Abandoned Destinations from Around the Globe by Elborough, Travis
Loved it!
Pioneer Imprints from Fifty States by Trienens, Roger J.; Published by Library of Congress in 1973
Interesting bit of printing history.
Bald Eagles, Bear Cubs, and Hermit Bill: Memories of a Wildlife Biologist in Maine by Joseph, Ron
Review copy via LibraryThing. Nice series of essays.
Illusions of Camelot by Boal, Peter
Review copy via LibraryThing. Interesting life.
The Nature of Oaks: The Rich Ecology of Our Most Essential Native Trees by Tallamy, Douglas W.
A good overview of oak trees in the USA and the natural life they suppoer. Lots of good color pictures.
Online:
Eat Like a 19th-Century Lumberjack With This Recipe by Marcoux, Paula
“One can work harder and longer on pork and beans…than on any other food with which I am acquainted, save bear meat.”
From the YouTube channel Kings and Things
"in the spring of 1842, a wealthy scholar and artist called Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey embarked on a grand tour of the Eastern Mediterranean. With the use of his camera, a technology that had been released to the public just three years before, he documented the local sites and people, and created a collection of photos that in many cases are the earliest to survive of the countries depicted. In this video, we’ll use Girault de Prangey’s collection of photographs to retrace his journey, and discover the world of the Eastern Mediterranean as it looked almost two hundred years ago."
A modern photographer in Egypt--Ebrahim Bahaa-Eldin
An annoying game:
Fun to see--Illustrator Joanne Joo
Another artist that caught my eye JJ Manford
