July 2014 Reading List

1. The Autobiography of Black Hawk by Black Hawk
2. The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton
3. Two Women of Galilee by Mary Rourke
4. The Master by Colm Toibin 
5. If I Stay by Gayle Forman

I think I got Black Hawk at some point as a freebie and its sat on my shelf for a while.  This month I tackled it -- it being a quick read.  I had no idea who Black Hawk was or his story other than being somewhat aware that Chicago's hockey team bears his name as well as a type of helicopter also shares that honor.  And honor it is!  How striking it is to understand the difference between how the native people of this country (and others that were colonized around this time) and the oncoming onslaught of immigrants perceived the idea of land "ownership".  On one side land could not be "owned" by people and on the other here was a piece of paper that made it so.  Also surprising in this story was the peaceable manner in which Black Hawk protested the loss of his village lands by refusing to move -- a precursor to later protest methods over 100 years later.  Consider this reader now enlightened by who Black Hawk really was.

I was surprised how much I enjoyed Forgotten Garden. I seem to recall that I might've watched parts of the movie some years ago, and on the strength of that I obtained the book recently when it was on sale.  The story itself is like peeling an onion layer by layer.  As one piece of the mystery is unraveled more mysteries are revealed and this process kept my attention and interest level up.  It is even more remarkable that the story takes shape following three different characters over three different historical periods: The early 1900s, the mid 1970s and in the current time (circa 2005). As a small piece of the puzzle is revealed in one period, the events in other periods inherit this as a "given" and reveal a bit more.  Very nicely done Kate!  I was unaware I was reading a novel because I was so absorbed in the story.

I have said before that I like to read about novels and non-fictional pieces around the time of Christ and so I picked up Two Women some time ago.  (I am making a concerted effort to read stuff that has languished on my book shelf for years).  This book is about some of the B-list characters from biblical times.  I enjoyed the contrasting of Roman and Hebrew lifestyles and getting a sense of what it must have been like to be living in your own home and ruled by a foreign power.  Essentially Rourke kept to script though, using biblical events to outline her story.  I thought there might be room for exploration of other ideas about that time along the lines that Saramago did in his work that I read recently.

The Master is my first read of a novel by Toibin and I am glad to say it won't be my last.  There is a line in an early part of the book where it is said "All the Irish are natural writers, my wife says, it comes naturally to them."  I put Mr Toibin in this category.  There are times this novel reads like a biography and times when you think it could be an autobiography.  I was convinced I was hearing the thoughts of Henry James.  The Master of psychological works is himself subject to a master of a psychological work.  Obviously this book is well researched and although I have not read any books by James, I will be in future.

Ok, ok -- I said I'd never read another YA novel -- ever!  My family and I just went on a road trip to Paso Robles and we wanted a book to listen to in the car.  My wife and daughter both wanted to listen to this book so I downloaded it from Audible real quick and off we went.  My faith in such novels has been somewhat restored.  I mean this story is still clearly aimed at teens but it is written with sensitivity and genuine feeling.  The first person narration doesn't get cloying like many other teen novels I've read.  I was moved in parts -- and not just during the soppy teen romance ones! My wife thought the ending was unfulfiling but I thought it was just fine.  However, she was very happy to learn that there is a sequel that tells us what happened to Adam and Mia.  Sigh.

June 2014 Reading List

I am late this month in getting this out -- books read this past June:

1. Wool (Omnibus Edition) by Hugh Howey
2. The Fracking King by James Browning
3. Misquoting Jesus by Bart D Ehrman
4. Robopocalypse by Daniel H Wilson
5. A Dance with Dragons by George RR Martin
6. The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid

 When it comes to Wool, I was a little behind the 8 ball.  Howey self published his book and Amazon were offering it up really cheap to begin with.  But with new authors its really hard to know whether something is good or not.  Well it wasn't until this book was picked up by a publisher that I thought there must be something to it.  So with that said I have to admit that Wool is fantastic!  From the end of the first short "book" I was stunned and hooked.  I devoured the rest as quickly as time permitted me.  The silo world that Howey creates is unique and a fresh spin on the usual apocalyptic genre.  I will be reading more by him in future including some of the other books about the Silo.

The Fracking King was a quick read bringing together two subjects that I would never have guessed at -- scrabble and fracking.  There's plenty to learn about both and so this novel has a good message to bring to the fore.  But I found myself getting lost at times in the narrative and just wanted to get to the end.

I've written before about my fascination with how Christianity came about from an historical perspective.  Ehrman is one of my favorite authors in this area and Misquoting is, I think, an essential book to read to understand how historical researchers establish their findings from ancient manuscripts.  It is amazing to learn how the modern Bible came about and surprising at how the faithful take for granted so many mistakes as truth.  I respect all people's faiths but I think that anyone that takes this type of research seriously, even Christians, will challenge their faith as Ehrman did and come to some unsettling conclusions.

With the release of Wilson's second robot apocalypse novel I decided it was probably time I read the first one.  The premise started off well but I quickly became disappointed with learning how the story was going to unfold.  I couldn't help but think that the mostly first person narrative was a little melodramatic.  That perhaps I was visualizing a video game where your objective was to be the various characters and take out Archos.  I removed the second book in the series from my wishlist.

What can be said about Game of Thrones that hasn't already been said?  I've been chugging through Dance for several months now (I always read more than one book at a time) and this month I finally finished it.  When I first started it I had no idea it was contemporaneous with Book 4 so I was confused until I read online about it -- then all made sense.  I enjoyed Book 5 so much more than 4 though and am anxious to get on with Book 6 now.  I read recently that HBO plans to finish the Series with 3 more seasons.  That means that they must cover Books 4 and 5 and two more unpublished books to do so.  Obviously that will be without the last two books coming out first.  This explains much of what I observed in Season 4 where aspects of the plot were coming forward in time, out of sequence with the other pieces of Book 3's plot.  I therefore now have different expectations of the tv series than the books but still enjoy both.

I was after a few quick reads this month and Reluctant Fundamentalist was in my sights.  Especially since a movie version was released recently and I was interested to watch it.  I didn't know quite what expect but this story was not it. Especially the ending. I thought the protagonist was overly hung up on his girlfriend but perhaps his nationalistic pride would come out in any of us. The end though was out of sorts with the deeds. So it was just ok for me.