"The Book Thief"

    Three years ago, my granddaughter, Erika, told me about this book.  She thought that it was the best book that she had read because of the excellent language.
  Set in Germany during the Second World War, this story is about a girl whose family decided to hide a Jewish man in their basement. 
   I decided to buy the book but it sat on my shelf  until this week.  I have suggested it for one of my book clubs and now I have to prepare to lead the discussion.
   
   The novel is full of foreshadowing and Erika disliked that.  I also felt that it was annoying at the beginning, but after awhile, I felt that it was 'endearing'.  Yes, that is the word that I want.  It seems to add to the quirkiness of the book.  And it is quirky!  With death as the narrator, how can it be anything else? But it's written for teens and I think it works for youth fiction.

  The author, Markus Zusak, lives in Australia.  I think it's important to notice that his mother was from Germany and his father was born in Austria.
  Zusak has written 6 books.  "The Book Thief" was published in 2005 and has been translated into more than 30 languages.  It was made into a film in 2013.  This movie is available from our local library, but the book is so emotional that I am not anxious to see the movie. Too sad!
  This really is a spectacular book!  It showed so clearly the worst of humanity and the best of humanity.  And, of course, the setting is real- Germany, beginning in 1939.
  The title reflects the main theme of this novel: books, the importance of words.
  Human nature and the importance of words.  Can it get any better than that?  I am looking forward to this discussion!

"Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World"

  An article in the newspaper, sent to me by my daughter,  caught my attention.  It was about reading in the digital age.  "Skim reading is the new normal".  Has this skimming, altered our brains?  Are readers losing the knack of sustained reading?
   "The reader who skims can lose the ability to grasp another person's feelings or perceive beauty."
  It has been noticed that university students are not signing up for 19th century literature because they cannot persevere through Dickens or Eliot.
   This article was written by Robert Fulford, but he quoted Maryanne Wolf, who is a neuroscientist.

   So I tracked down Maryanne's book "Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World".

   In the past, Maryanne has researched how the brain learns to read.  She believes that humans were never born to read. "The acquisition of literacy is one of the most important epigenetic achievements of Homo sapiens...The act of learning to read added an entirely new circuit to our hominid brain's repertoire."

   In this book, Maryanne explores how the digital age has affected the reading brain.  The concept is fascinating, but the complexity of the brain, which is the focus of the first two chapters, overwhelmed me and I skimmed to get to the information I was looking for.
  Her question is this:
"Are we as a society, beginning to lose the quality of attention necessary to give time to the essential human faculties that make up and sustain deep reading?  If so, what can we do about it?"
   Having taught young children to read, I was wondering how such learning would need to change in the future.
   Since this is new territory,  there is great debate about the future of reading.  Technology brings benefits.  We cannot ignore it. So we need to work toward "building a bilateral brain".
  As I have said, this book is complex and I feel that I just scratched the surface.  But it makes me more concerned about the fact that our libraries, which have jumped on the technology bandwagon, have lost the focus on literacy.

"Dear Life" by Alice Munro

"English-Canadian Fiction  in the 21st Century"

   This is the title of a course being offered  by Third Age Learning in Guelph this fall. I am enrolled and looking forward to the lectures . One of the first books in the lecture series is "Dear Life" by Alice Munro.

  I had previously read 2 books by Alice Munro: "Lives of Girls and Women" and "The Love of a Good Woman".  I was not impressed by either book, and this one did not excite me either.

  But..many readers greatly enjoy her writing.  Amazon has printed 747 reviews from readers about this book. Almost half of them rated this book with five stars (5 stars out of 5).  Wow!
   Alice Munro has won many prestigious awards-notably the Nobel prize for Literature in 2013.
   In the reviews in Amazon, I read this type of response:
- her beguiling characters are nuanced, headstrong and surprising
- she has revolutionized the architecture of short stories especially in its tendency to move forward and backward in time
  I have not found any of her characters memorable and I wouldn't really enjoy a story 'moving forward and backward in time'.
  I look for a clear narrative forward and I enjoy interesting characters.  I really appreciate seeing the characters develop as the story unfolds.  I never felt a connection with any of Alice Munro's characters.  They did not evoke any emotion.  Each character was just moving along through life.  Perhaps that is what people enjoy- just the ordinariness of her stories.

Broken Promise

   I have already written about One Book One Community 2018, with this year's book: "Broken Promise".  
  You can read that blog here.
  I decided to re-read the book in anticipation of our library book club discussion and the author's appearance at the end of the month. 
  Because I am not a mystery-lover, I looked for some information on mystery novels.  And I found this interesting list of requirements for a mystery novel.

Mystery novels have 7 elements:

1.  A strong hook
2.  Active reader involvement in piecing together information
3.  Red herrings
4.  Suspenseful dialogue
5.  Effective, descriptive mood and language
6.  Well-structured chapters
7.  A satisfying conclusion

    As I read the book this time, I thought of these aspects of a mystery novel, and I concluded that this is a great mystery novel.  There is a hook in the first sentence "before all hell broke loose".  There is much piecing together of information with some red herrings (at least, I think they were red herrings).  There are so many characters and so many sub-plots, that it becomes confusing.  Certainly there is a suspenseful mood and language. The chapters are short and snappy, leaving you thinking. 

   In this small town of Promise Falls, it seems that all residents have horrific things happening in their lives- either now or in the past.  And you DO read about many of those residents.

  I cannot say that this novel had a satisfying conclusion for me.  But what is a satisfying conclusion- when so many people have been murdered.  As it said at the beginning-"all hell broke loose".  what is a satisfying ending for that???

   So, on second reading,  I did realize that this novel has most of the elements it needs to make a great read for mystery lovers.

   But the focus on death- murder actually, does not make a good read for me.

   Let's see what the rest of the book club think.

The Winding Road

   What is more delightful than an old, well-read book from years

gone by?

   My daughter's friend inherited this book along with the other books in her father's library.  I had a chance to read it and was fascinated.  

  The author is given as "Patience Strong", a pen name.  

Winifred Emma May

Winifred Emma May was born in England in 1907.  She grew up with books and Sunday School.  Her writing reflects both.  Her very short, poetic writings focus on nature and philosophy of life.

  She also was musical and some of her writing was put into song.  Her poems were often printed in "Good Housekeeping" and other magazines.

Here is an example of writing from "The Winding Road":

"Make Yourself Forget"

When you think of other people, try to blot from mind

all that they have done to you that seemed a bit unkind.

All the small misunderstandings and the big ones too

The words that stung you to the quick, the stones they flung at you.

It is hard, but try to do it. Make yourself forget-

everything that tends to make you angry or upset.

It's not sentimental nonsense- It's the wiser way-

The people who have hurt you most, may be your friends someday.

If you try to see them from a different point of view-

Seeing only what is best and not what vexes you.

Every Note Played

    Lisa Genova is an amazing author, who brings her expertise in neuroscience to the reader in a powerful way.
  You can read about her in this blog, where I wrote about her first book "Still Alice".  Her goal is to raise awareness of unusual but devastating illnesses.

  In this book, "Every Note Played", she writes about ALS.  I was very interested because I have been close to two people who lived with this disease.
  Lisa Genova is able to put all the necessary science into the book, but also include very basic human emotions of love, guilt, regret.  Her writing is amazing.
Plot:
  The protagonist, Karina had been married to Richard, a concert pianist, but the marriage dissolved in anger and hatred.   However, when Richard was diagnosed with ALS and was  no longer able to care for himself, Karina invited him back to the family home. He had run out of money and there were no other options. Here, in the family home,  his physical needs were met, but the anger of his wife and daughter filled the home.

  Lisa Genova's writing is fascinating:
"She can feel the razor-sharp point of every edge between Richard and her, but she assumed their animosity was traveling on a private, restricted highway."

  Because the author is a neuroscientist, ALS is described in minute detail, perhaps a little too much.  Her interest in this disease began when her book "Still Alice" was being made into a movie.  One of the writer-directors, was in the early stages of ALS and she learned from him, the details of life with ALS.  She later met many people who inspired and encouraged her in her desire to teach the world about this very devastating disease.
   

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

   The protagonist in this mystery novel is a brilliant, morbid 11-year-old named Flavia. She is fascinated with chemistry- especially poisons.  It is 1950 in England.
Quote:
Whenever I was upset, I made for my sanctum sanctorum.  Here, among the bottles and beakers, I would allow myself to be enveloped by what I thought of as the Spirit of Chemistry.  Here, sometimes, I would reenact, step by step, the discoveries of the great chemists.

  The novel begins with Flavia tied, gagged and locked in a dark closet.  Did I mention that Flavia lives with her father and two sisters?  The sisters are very cruel and that is why Flavia is in this situation.  They put her there.
  As the story progressed, Flavia found a dead man in the front garden and immediately began her sleuthing to follow the clues in this mystery.  She is successful in her search but ends up again - bound, gagged and locked in a basement, this time by the murderer.
  There are many references to chemistry and stamp collecting.  A mystery lover with those interests will love this book.  I did not.  I do not have a mind for mystery, but this book is very popular and is the first in a proposed series of ten.
  Many people find the protagonist in this series very interesting.  She certainly is not your usual 11- year-old.

Secrets in the Dark

  Everybody needs a little inspiration at one time or another.
  This is a book of inspiration.
  Frederick Buechner, the author, is an American preacher and theologian.  He is 92 at present.  His writing is simple but profound.  He acknowledges those who struggle to believe and is very gentle in his preaching, attempting to avoid traditional religious language and imagery.
  My best friend from childhood loaned me this book because it was so inspirational for her.
  And this is the way it looked when she loaned it to me:

Here is an excerpt about hope.
"Hope is the driving power and outermost edge of faith.  Hope stands up to its knees in the past and keeps its eyes on the future.  There has never been a time past when God wasn't with us as the strength beyond our strength, the wisdom beyond our wisdom, as whatever it is in our hearts- whether we believe in God or not- that keeps us human enough at least to get by despite everything in our lives that tends to wither the heart and make us less than human.  To remember the past is to see that we are here today by grace, that we have survived as a gift."

  This is a book of sermons that really make you think and encourage a life of faith.
   

The Kite Runner

    David, 23, is one of our grandchildren that loves to read and talk about books.
  He convinced me to read one of his favourites.  It was "Slaughterhouse Five" by Kurt Vonnegut.  I was not impressed!
   John and I both love "The Kite Runner", so we recommended it to David and were interested in discussing it with him.  And here we are.  It was a rainy day delight!

  This novel begins in Afghanistan with two young boys that are great friends.  But Amir, at 12,  does not help his friend when he is in trouble and feels guilty for years.  Much later in his life, he is living in California and gets a phone call from his father's friend, who says, "There is a way to be good again".
  This is a powerful story of redemption, atonement and GOODNESS.
  John and I both read it shortly after it was published in 2003.
  David enjoyed reading about the history and culture of Afghanistan. The Taliban features in this book and there is a scene of retribution or justice, that makes you cheer.
  This novel has the best ending that I have ever read.  It involves flying kites, as that is a big theme in the novel.  And it involves Amir's nephew who was the same age as Amir was when he declined helping his friend.  It provided 'a way to be good again'.     Very powerful ending to a great novel.

The Midwife's Daughter

   Once again, I chose this book because of the cover.  I was choosing books for the retirement home, when I saw this cover and knew that I had to read the book.  The young girl on the cover was calling out to me.  I knew that she had a story.
  However, I have been dealing with eye problems- not serious but temporarily troubling.  So it has been difficult to read.  The novel moves back and forth in time and sometimes I got lost because of the little bits that I could read.  Probably I would have enjoyed the novel more if I had been able to read more quickly.
   

   Violet Dimond, an identical twin, has lost a daughter and raised a son, when she discovers a little black child in an orphanage in England.  It was the beginning of the 20th century and Violet was 50 years old.
  She decided to adopt the little girl who was sickly and frail.  Her name was Grace and the novel is the story of her life.
  The small community where they lived was not used to seeing black people and I was surprised at the cruelty of the town people.  I realize it was over a century ago, but they called her 'the Silkhampton Darkie' and 'the two-headed lady'.  Grace got used to the stares and eventually met other people with physical disabilities that she could align with.

author-Patricia Ferguson

   Patricia Ferguson took a 2-year course in nursing at the Royal London Hospital.   She loved the obstetrics part of the training, and also completed a midwifery course.  She made use of those skills when writing this novel because Grace's mother, Violet was a midwife and the author wrote about her work in detail.
  I found the novel somewhat disjointed as the viewpoint changed from Grace to Violet to Violet's twin Bea.  Oh, yes, the novel begins in a hospital with men who had been injured in the war.  Joe Gilder ends up marrying Grace much later in the story.  So, it did move around, and the end was rather mysterious.  Not as satisfying as I had hoped.  But I still love the little girl on the cover.

Alan Lightman, continued

   What a surprise to find this new book called "In Praise of Wasting Time" by Alan Lightman.  What does he know about 'wasting time' and how did he find time to write this?
   Here is his message:
"An enormous transformation has occurred in the world from the 1950's and '60's of my youth to today.  A transformation so vast that it has altered all that we do and say and think, yet often in ways so subtle and ubiquitous that we are hardly aware of them.  Among other things, the world today is faster, more scheduled, more fragmented, less patient, louder, more wired, more public.  For want of a better phrase, I will call this world 'the wired world'."

   For sure, there are many advantages of technology.  It has improved medicine and communication vastly. 
   But Lightman adds:"It has come at a cost.  And it is time that we recognize what we have lost".
  I was very interested in Lightman's perspective on the mixed blessing of this 'wired world'.  I have always recognized a change in the world with each new invention and knew that we were losing something important in very little parcels.  I often yearn for the calmer, quieter past.

   This book was written in 2018 and talks about the rate of anxiety and depression in teenagers.  Quote:"Some experts say that the main driver is the massive and pervasive presence of the digital grid, with little opportunity or desire to disconnect". 
   Teenagers report feeling 'lonely', when what they are really missing is 'themselves'.  They have never been able to sit quietly and discover who they really are.
  Lightman also talks about the damage to creative thinking and the loss of 'replenishment' of the mind.

  I really relate to this book because I fight the access to technology all around me.  I know there are many advantages but I am not willing to give over my 'privacy'.  It sounds bizarre, but I don't want to be available 24/7.  I want to be alone with myself and my thoughts.

I strongly believe Lightman when he says, 

"Technology is a blessing and a curse".

  And so, I was surprised that Alan Lightman himself, who knows the value of the separate human spirit, says: "Against my will, knowing all the dangers, I have been sucked into the maelstrom.  I have heard the song of the Sirens and succumbed.  I should have tied myself to the mast".

  "Little by little, our world has been transformed.  Little by little, we have lost the silences, the needed time for contemplation, the open spaces in our minds, the privacies we once had.  We have lost the knowledge of who we are and what is important to us.  All of it happening so gradually and compellingly that we haven't noticed".

Alan Lightman

   Alan Lightman is a fascinating man.  He is a physicist and an author.  I watched his TED talk about the similarities and differences in science and the arts.  He lives in both worlds.  He has a PHD in theoretical physics and has received five honorary degrees.  But he has also written many books - from novels to books on astronomy.
  I first read his novel "Diagnosis" in 2002 and I was captivated by it.  It seemed to reflect the changes that were happening in the new millenium. It is even more relevant today.


Diagnosis:  Overwhelmed by an environment of cell phones and complex technology, Bill Chalmers deteriorates emotionally and then physically.  He is found on the train in a fetal position, with few clothes, but clutching his cell phone.  He does not know his name or destination.
  The search for a 'diagnosis' is extensive, but futile.  His life is in a downward spiral.  His wife has escaped to an e-mail affair and alcohol.  His son is totally involved in the internet world.

  The whole aspect of 'diagnosis' intrigued me.  Was this novel a 'diagnosis' of our society?  Rush, rush, rush- technology galore!
   
   A second story line added to the intrigue.  Bill's son Alex, reads to Bill the story of the death of Socrates.  Remember Socrates?  "The unexamined life"?  Is that the clue to the 'diagnosis'?


Probably the most thought-provoking book that I have read. 
I read it in two days. It is not so much a story -as a mirror of life.  What has been lost in the search to succeed?

    I re-read the book 2 years later.  Recently I renewed my interest in Alan Lightman when I found another book that has just been published.  Check my next blog.

"Jacob of Abbington Pickets" by H.C. Hewitt

H.C. Hewitt

   My daughter was visiting a friend who lives on a farm in Alberta.  In a town nearby there was a quilt shop that attracted my daughter.  H.C.Hewitt is the owner and she is also a writer.  She was selling her book, so my daughter bought it for me.
   I do enjoy reading a book when there is a connection with the author, no matter how slight that connection is.  Whenever I come across an author selling books, I want to support that author. But, of course, I realize that this is a beginning author and the writing may not be great. 

   The protagonist in this novel is a young man, Jacob, who grew up on a farm on the prairies in the late 1800's.
  The novel begins when he is 8, with 4 older siblings.  The father is very strict and everyone is afraid of him.  Something awful happens right at the beginning of the novel that gives Jacob nightmares.
  But Jacob grows up to be a handsome, hard-working young man who falls in love with a young girl who has been promised to another man.  She returns to England to marry him.  He falls in love again and she is killed in a fire.  Whoops!  Have I given away the whole plot?

  This novel is advertised as a novel about virtue and redemption.  And that it is.  The author had always wanted to write a historical romance, and this is it.  At the end, there is redemption for everyone, including Jacob who had fallen into a pit of depression.
   I have read many raving reviews of the novel and I think it fills a need for simple writing, Canadian prairies, and wholesome values.

"The Stone Angel" by Margaret Laurence

  One of the most memorable protagonists in literature is Hagar Shipley.  She is interesting to read about but she is not someone that I would like to know and definitely I would not want to live with her.
  Hagar Shipley is 90 years old in this classic novel, living with her son and daughter-in-law, and she is the most miserable character you can imagine.  She cannot care for herself, but hates receiving help.  Her daughter-in-law is unable to continue caring for her, so she will need to move to a nursing home.  Of course, she will not consider that and leaves on an adventure into the woods.

    

   The epigraph at the front of this novel expresses Hagar's thinking. "Do not go gentle into that good night.  Rage, rage against the dying of the light".

(Dylan Thomas)

  Kirkus Review says:
"A fine portrait of a fierce old woman and the lives she dominated and diminished".
   In the novel, Hagar's mind wanders from present to past.  You learn about her childhood and her marriage.  It certainly is a fine portrait of a woman who was always controlling and miserable.  Very hard to like this protagonist!

There is a proliferation of covers for this novel.  I have shown a few.

Margaret laurence

   
   This novel was written when Margaret Laurence was 38.  I wonder why she was so interested in the topic of aging and death.  She lived to the age of 61, when she was diagnosed with terminal cancer and took her own life.  Perhaps she had the same spirit as Hagar Shipley.  She needed to be in control. 
  This novel is required reading in many schools.  I can't imagine that the subject matter is interesting to students, but the writing is amazing and it is a wonderful portrait of time and place.
  

"Indian Horse" by Richard Wagamese

   On Friday I had the privilege of leading a discussion of "Indian Horse" at the public library.  
     This may be the best book that I have ever read.  The descriptions of nature, Aboriginal life, and hockey, are stunning.   The emotional journey is beyond description.
   The juxtaposition of residential schools and hockey was a brilliant ploy.  These two themes came together in the main character, Saul Indian Horse, so beautifully! The residential school broke his spirit but hockey lifted him out of the horrors of the school and let him fly.  He could have had a career in hockey, but he could not survive the racism of the fans and the cruelty of other players.  So he turned away from the bright lights and settled in an aboriginal town playing hockey on the rink with other like-minded young aboriginal men.

  Way back in 2002 when I started this blog, I made videos.  Here is one where I am describing my reaction to"Indian Horse".  It had been nominated for Canada Reads.
  You can watch that here:  http://bettysvideobookblog.blogspot.com/2013/03/indian-horse-indian-horse-is-my-pick.html

  I wrote this blog when the author Richard Wagamese died:
http://bettysvideobookblog.blogspot.com/2017/03/richard-wagamese.html

And here is my emotional attachment to Richard Wagamese: http://bettysvideobookblog.blogspot.com/2013/09/richard-wagamese.html

Richard Wagamese

alternate book cover

I hope these links work for you.

"The Sweetgum Knit Lit Society"

   What a title!  "Sweetgum" is the name of the small town in Tennessee, named after the sweetgum trees growing there. And the novel is about a group of ladies that knit and read.

sweetgum tree

   It certainly is no literary masterpiece, but I thought it was fun- only 5 ladies of various ages.  The town librarian is the leader who chooses the books and she also chooses a knitting project to fit the theme of the book. e.g. a hat for the goatherder in "Heidi".
   Each of the ladies is facing serious life issues  that you become aware of as the story goes along.
   The focal point is Hannah- a teenager who lives in poverty in a trailer with a mother, whose boyfriend is a problem for Hannah.  The librarian, Eugenie, meets Hannah when she discovers that Hannah has ripped a knitting pattern from a library book.  In her strict librarian way, Eugenie suggests that she work off the price of a new book, and takes note of Hannah's interest in knitting.     Hannah is introduced to the 'knit and lit' group, so she can pursue her interest in knitting and also read the classics that Eugenie thinks would be helpful to her life- classics about strong girls.
  This book was a nice change of pace for me, as I thought of women's issues and how helpful it can be to share experiences with other women.  Reading and knitting are lovely themes, along with friendship, that warm the heart.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

   This non-fiction book is the story of a black woman in Maryland, whose cells were taken (without her permission) while she was a patient at John Hopkins Hospital, suffering from cancer.  She died shortly after, in 1951. But her cells are a multi-million dollar business and continue to multiply to this day.  
   These cells have been used for research and advances in medicine.  Here is a partial list of the uses: polio vaccine, chemotherapy, gene mapping, in vitro fertilization, herpes, leukemia, hemophilia, Parkinson's disease, and the list goes on and on and on!
   But, her poor black family still live in poverty, unable to pay for health care.  They were completely unaware that their mother's cells had been used by science, and when they found out, they could not understand the complications of science.  No one took time to describe- in language that they could understand.  But many people were contacting them to get information and further 'testing' on the family.
  This author, Rebecca Skloot heard about this situation in 1999 and wondered about the person Henrietta Lacks.  She initiated contact with the extended family and was very respectful of the people who had been used and abused over the years.  She moved very carefully- in fact, it took her over ten years to finish writing this book.  In the process, she grew very close to the family and helped them understand and accept their mother's place in history.
  This book is 'chock-full' of detail!
  Not only is there description of the large Lacks family, but many, many doctors, nurses, medical researchers, lawyers, con men, and odds and ends of the general public thrown in.   
  The book is full of ethical issues: experimentation on African Americans over the years, the history of bio-ethics, battles over who owns our body parts.
   It did leave me exhausted!

  In closing, a note of appreciation to the author, Rebecca Skoot, who honoured the immortal life of Henrietta Lack.
  Oh, by the way, Oprah made a movie of this book and she starred in it as Henrietta's daughter.

"The Great Alone" by Kristin Hannah

  The title for this book came from Robert Service's poem called "The Shooting of Dan McGrew":
"Were you ever out in the Great Alone, when the moon was awful clear,
And the icy mountains hemmed you in with a silence you most could hear?"
   The "Great Alone" is Alaska.  There is great description of Alaska in this novel!



  In 1974, Leni Allbright was a young teenager trying to fit in with her classmates.  She had moved many times because her father couldn't keep a job and was suffering from P.T.S.D. after being a POW in the Vietnam war.
  When her father inherited some property in Alaska, it seemed like an answer to the family's problems.  
  
Quote:
"They lived on a piece of land that couldn't be accessed by water at low tide, on a peninsula with only a handful of people and hundreds of wild animals, in a climate harsh enough to kill you.  There was no police station, no telephone service, no one to hear you scream".

  Yes, the wild animals are dangerous, and the weather is harsh, but the biggest danger turns out to be Leni's father.
Quote: "All this time, Dad had taught Leni how dangerous the outside world was.  The truth was that the biggest danger of all was in her own home."

  This is another time when I stand alone in evaluating literature. This novel has been given 4.35 stars from Goodreads and 4.6 stars from Amazon.  So..what do I know?
   I know that the first half pulled me in and the last half devastated me!  I read long into the night, but that was not a good thing.  The book does pull you in, but I felt that the ending was like a 'thriller', which we have already discovered I have no tolerance for.
  It was overly dramatic and seemed to romanticize abuse.  When I expected some resolution of the plot...... the plot exploded!
  Because I invest so much of myself in a novel, it is not the book for me. Abuse, abuse, and more abuse!
  Many parts did not seem realistic- especially the ending.

  Such wonderful descriptions of Alaskan life!  I love description, but not when it involves bruised and battered bodies, half-dead, and dead bodies. 
   I had such  expectations of plot development.  Greatly disappointed!

The Great American Read, part 4

The last of the 100 books:

The Outsiders, S. E. Hinton
The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde
The Pilgrim's Progress, John Bunyan
The Pillars of The Earth, Ken Follett
Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
Ready Player One, Ernest Cline
Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
The Shack, William P. Young
Siddhartha, Hermann Hesse
The Sirens Of Titan, Kurt Vonnegut
The Stand, Stephen King
The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway
Swan Song, Robert R. McCammon
Tales of The City (series), Armistead Maupin
Their Eyes Were Watching God Zora Neale Hurston
Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe
This Present Darkness, Frank. E. Peretti
To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
The Twilight Saga (series), Stephenie Meyer
War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
Watchers, Dean Koontz
The Wheel of Time (series), Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson
Where the Red Fern Grows, Wilson Rawls
White Teeth, Zadie Smith
Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë

   Good old favourites- "To Kill a Mockingbird", Wuthering Heights", "Rebecca", "Pride and Prejudice", "The Picture of Dorian Grey", "Siddhartha".
  And, a contemporary favourite of mine - Ken Follett's "The Pillars of the Earth".  
  We will discover in the fall which book has been chosen as 

"THE GREAT AMERICAN READ"

The Great American Read, part 3

   Here is the third set of titles.   I haven't read many of these books.  
   My favourite probably would be "Jane Eyre" or "Memoirs of a Geisha".

Hatchet (series), Gary Paulsen
Heart Of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
The Help, Kathryn Stockett
The Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy, Douglas Adams
The Hunger Games (series), Suzanne Collins
The Hunt For Red October, Tom Clancy
The Intuitionist, Colson Whitehead
Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison
Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan
Jurassic Park, Michael Crichton
Left Behind (series), Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins
The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
Lonesome Dove, Larry McMurtry
Looking for Alaska, John Green
The Lord of the Rings (series), J.R.R. Tolkien
The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold
The Martian, Andy Weir
Memoirs of a Geisha, Arthur Golden
Mind Invaders, Dave Hunt
Moby-Dick, Herman Melville
The Notebook, Nicholas Sparks
One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez
Outlander (series), Diana Gabaldon

   "The Hunger Games" was certainly popular recently and "The Help" was a good movie.  But there are also lots of obscure books in this list.

                                                .........continued in the next blog entry