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So I thought this was a new book, but its a reissue from 1996. Well it is a good book that I missed, so I am grateful for the reissue!
In this book Travis plays golf on Christmas Day when all of a sudden with clarity he is able to see where his puts will go. Thinking it a fluke he keeps playing until he realizes he has missed Christmas dinner with his family. His marriage is already on the brink of divorce, this does not help matters.
After Christmas he loses his job. With his marriage on the rocks, no job he decides what the heck and signs up for Qualifying School for the Senior PGA Tour. He makes it and begins his first season on tour.
This was a really good book, but a very quick read. I finished it in about two hours.
I don't personally play golf, although I used to occasionally, but my husband does. I think that's what drew me to it. It is a really good book, but I do think you need to understand a bit about golf to really get it. Plus I thought some of his descriptions of the rounds of golf went on too long.
Other than that, very enjoyable. I would give this a very solid B.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
#129 How to Be an American Housewife by Margaret Dilloway
In this book Shoko is determined to leave her past behind and realizes the best chance for the life she wants is by marrying an American GI and moving to America. The book is her story. It opens with her wanting to get back to Japan to make peace with her brother Taro.
As the book starts your not really sure why Taro disowned her besides his hatred for Americans that begins after World War II. You learn through the book that there is more to it than meets the eye. Part of the book is through Shoko's eyes, and the other part is through Sue's eyes who takes the trip to Japan for her mother.
It was a wonderful story about redemption and forgiveness. It was heartbreaking and beautiful at the same time. I really enjoyed it. It shows humanity. Shoko was not a perfect person, but she did the best with the circumstances given to her. She had endured a hard life, partly her own making, but not all. I guess I tried to put myself in her shoes of coming to another country with an entirely different culture and language.
I would give this one a B.
As the book starts your not really sure why Taro disowned her besides his hatred for Americans that begins after World War II. You learn through the book that there is more to it than meets the eye. Part of the book is through Shoko's eyes, and the other part is through Sue's eyes who takes the trip to Japan for her mother.
It was a wonderful story about redemption and forgiveness. It was heartbreaking and beautiful at the same time. I really enjoyed it. It shows humanity. Shoko was not a perfect person, but she did the best with the circumstances given to her. She had endured a hard life, partly her own making, but not all. I guess I tried to put myself in her shoes of coming to another country with an entirely different culture and language.
I would give this one a B.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
#128 One Day by David Nicholls
Wow, this was a great book! Yes it deserves an exclamation point. It was that good.
This book starts in 1988 where Emma and Dexter have just graduated college and have "hooked up" for the night and from there a friendship begins. The book checks in with the characters each year to see where they are and you are able to get a glimpse of what their life has been during the previous year.
Can I just say that Mr. David Nicholls is Brilliant (yes with a capital B)? He is. The way he wove the story was breathtaking. The story itself was good, but the way it was written made it even more enjoyable.
I read a lot and it takes a lot to shock me, but this one did it. I won't give anything away about this book because it is truly a treasure you need to read for yourself to find out.
The characters are written so well they are truly three dimensional. I felt like I truly knew the characters. They are both basically decent people or trying to be, but you see their flaws as well. They are laid bare to you the reader to judge.
I didn't have high hopes for this book because it has been getting such raves everywhere and usually those books are not ones I end up enjoying. A lot of those books get so carried away in telling a story differently the story gets lost or just isn't very good. This was truly an exception it told a story differently, but most important it told a wonderful story. It was at times sad and others funny. It was almost with a sense of sadness I finished the book. I definitely had to take some time before picking up my next book to let the characters sit with me for a while before I said goodbye.
This book starts in 1988 where Emma and Dexter have just graduated college and have "hooked up" for the night and from there a friendship begins. The book checks in with the characters each year to see where they are and you are able to get a glimpse of what their life has been during the previous year.
Can I just say that Mr. David Nicholls is Brilliant (yes with a capital B)? He is. The way he wove the story was breathtaking. The story itself was good, but the way it was written made it even more enjoyable.
I read a lot and it takes a lot to shock me, but this one did it. I won't give anything away about this book because it is truly a treasure you need to read for yourself to find out.
The characters are written so well they are truly three dimensional. I felt like I truly knew the characters. They are both basically decent people or trying to be, but you see their flaws as well. They are laid bare to you the reader to judge.
I didn't have high hopes for this book because it has been getting such raves everywhere and usually those books are not ones I end up enjoying. A lot of those books get so carried away in telling a story differently the story gets lost or just isn't very good. This was truly an exception it told a story differently, but most important it told a wonderful story. It was at times sad and others funny. It was almost with a sense of sadness I finished the book. I definitely had to take some time before picking up my next book to let the characters sit with me for a while before I said goodbye.
Monday, August 23, 2010
#127 The Court of Common Pleas: A Novel
From the Barnes and Noble site:
At sixty-three, Judge Gregory Brennan is on the brink of retirement. With his youngest daughter headed for college, he envisions traveling abroad, basking in a repose that his demanding career has not allowed, with his wife, Audrey, at his side. But Audrey has other ambitions. At forty-nine, she sees the mythic empty nest as an opportunity to explore her own potential — as a medical student. When Audrey reveals her plans, Gregory is overwhelmed, and he emotionally retreats, causing a rift that neither one of them ever anticipated.
Marshall has been praised for her insight into the complexities of modern marriage, capturing it as “an institution about competing needs and shifting wants” (Baltimore Sun). In THE COURT OF COMMOM
I removed any kind of review of the book which was the first and last sentence because they were good reviews. I did not care for this book at all. I felt it very tedious and quite simply boring. I did not find any of the characters intriguing. There are books where you don't like the characters, but to me in this book the characters were blah. Even in books where the characters aren't likable I can get caught up in their story to a certain degree, but with these two I could have cared less what happened to them.
This one I hate to do it but its an F.
At sixty-three, Judge Gregory Brennan is on the brink of retirement. With his youngest daughter headed for college, he envisions traveling abroad, basking in a repose that his demanding career has not allowed, with his wife, Audrey, at his side. But Audrey has other ambitions. At forty-nine, she sees the mythic empty nest as an opportunity to explore her own potential — as a medical student. When Audrey reveals her plans, Gregory is overwhelmed, and he emotionally retreats, causing a rift that neither one of them ever anticipated.
Marshall has been praised for her insight into the complexities of modern marriage, capturing it as “an institution about competing needs and shifting wants” (Baltimore Sun). In THE COURT OF COMMOM
I removed any kind of review of the book which was the first and last sentence because they were good reviews. I did not care for this book at all. I felt it very tedious and quite simply boring. I did not find any of the characters intriguing. There are books where you don't like the characters, but to me in this book the characters were blah. Even in books where the characters aren't likable I can get caught up in their story to a certain degree, but with these two I could have cared less what happened to them.
This one I hate to do it but its an F.
#126 A Super Sad True Love Story: A Novel by Gary Shteyngart
I'm not really into futuristic books, but this was different, it was a love story.
Amazon.com Review
Amazon Best of the Month, August 2010: Welcome to the day after tomorrow. In Gary Shteyngart's near-future New York, the dollar has been pegged to the yuan, the American Restoration Authority is on high security alert, and Lenny Abramov, the middle-aged possessor of a decent credit score but an absurdly low--and embarrassingly public--Male Hotness rating, is in love with the young Eunice Park. Like many of the clients of his employer, the Post-Human Services division of the Staatling-Wapachung Corporation, he'd also like to live forever, but all he really wants is to love Eunice. And for a time, despite the traditional challenges of their gaps in age and ethnicity and the more modern hurdle of an oppressively networked culture that makes your most private identity as transparent as the Onionskin jeans that are all the rage, he does. Super Sad True Love Story is as corrosively hilarious as you'd expect from the satirist of Absurdistan and The Russian Debutante's Handbook, but what may surprise you are the moments when the satire hits bedrock and the story becomes--no air quotes required--sad, true, and very much a love story. --Tom Nissley
This is another one that the characters just aren't very likable. You kind of feel sorry for Lenny, he's just an idiot really. He has so missed the boat and doesn't even realize it. He falls in love with Eunice while in Rome the day before he is to return home. She is really not into him but I think feels sorry for him at first.
After he returns home he continues to "write" her through their futuristic devices and begs her to come to New York and live with him. Through a series of her communications you learn she wants to come home to help out her family who is dealing with her abusive father. She ends up coming to live with Lenny as a way to come home without living with her parents.
They have a very dysfunctional relationship. Lenny worships the ground Eunice walks on and she barely controls her dislike of him. She reduces him on a regular basis to begging at her feet for her to stay with him.
You really can't respect either of them. I have to say for me the most interesting part of the story was the background political stuff. In this book, America is on the verge of an economical collapse. The president is a dictator and the National Guard is ruthless.
I would have to give this one a C also.
Amazon.com Review
Amazon Best of the Month, August 2010: Welcome to the day after tomorrow. In Gary Shteyngart's near-future New York, the dollar has been pegged to the yuan, the American Restoration Authority is on high security alert, and Lenny Abramov, the middle-aged possessor of a decent credit score but an absurdly low--and embarrassingly public--Male Hotness rating, is in love with the young Eunice Park. Like many of the clients of his employer, the Post-Human Services division of the Staatling-Wapachung Corporation, he'd also like to live forever, but all he really wants is to love Eunice. And for a time, despite the traditional challenges of their gaps in age and ethnicity and the more modern hurdle of an oppressively networked culture that makes your most private identity as transparent as the Onionskin jeans that are all the rage, he does. Super Sad True Love Story is as corrosively hilarious as you'd expect from the satirist of Absurdistan and The Russian Debutante's Handbook, but what may surprise you are the moments when the satire hits bedrock and the story becomes--no air quotes required--sad, true, and very much a love story. --Tom Nissley
This is another one that the characters just aren't very likable. You kind of feel sorry for Lenny, he's just an idiot really. He has so missed the boat and doesn't even realize it. He falls in love with Eunice while in Rome the day before he is to return home. She is really not into him but I think feels sorry for him at first.
After he returns home he continues to "write" her through their futuristic devices and begs her to come to New York and live with him. Through a series of her communications you learn she wants to come home to help out her family who is dealing with her abusive father. She ends up coming to live with Lenny as a way to come home without living with her parents.
They have a very dysfunctional relationship. Lenny worships the ground Eunice walks on and she barely controls her dislike of him. She reduces him on a regular basis to begging at her feet for her to stay with him.
You really can't respect either of them. I have to say for me the most interesting part of the story was the background political stuff. In this book, America is on the verge of an economical collapse. The president is a dictator and the National Guard is ruthless.
I would have to give this one a C also.
#125 The Wilde Women: A Novel by Paula Wall
From Booklist off Amazon's website:
The Great Depression dealt a hard blow to Five Points, Tennessee, and young Pearl Wilde feels just as leveled when she finds her fiance in flagrante delicto with her sister, Kat. Pearl promptly leaves town, and speculation runs rampant in the years she's away. Various sightings are reported, and the postcards she sends her sister from all over the globe are read and digested by the gossip mill before Kat ever sees them. When Pearl finally returns, with all the glamour of Ginger Rogers and the mystery of Greta Garbo, the ornery people of Five Points are curious. When she decides to open a whorehouse, the overworked women are unhappy, and further angered when their lazy men are recruited to restore the old mansion Pearl has purchased. Each and every character in Wall's tall tale has a uniquely flawed personality, and Wall has a wonderful sense of place and an adept way with words, adding up to an enthralling novel. Maria Hatton
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
This was a decent book, I wouldn't recommend anyone rush out to buy it though. None of the characters are all that likable.
It did have a bit of a surprise at the end that I won't give away. I really don't have a lot to say about this book because I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it. On a grade level I would give it a C.
The Great Depression dealt a hard blow to Five Points, Tennessee, and young Pearl Wilde feels just as leveled when she finds her fiance in flagrante delicto with her sister, Kat. Pearl promptly leaves town, and speculation runs rampant in the years she's away. Various sightings are reported, and the postcards she sends her sister from all over the globe are read and digested by the gossip mill before Kat ever sees them. When Pearl finally returns, with all the glamour of Ginger Rogers and the mystery of Greta Garbo, the ornery people of Five Points are curious. When she decides to open a whorehouse, the overworked women are unhappy, and further angered when their lazy men are recruited to restore the old mansion Pearl has purchased. Each and every character in Wall's tall tale has a uniquely flawed personality, and Wall has a wonderful sense of place and an adept way with words, adding up to an enthralling novel. Maria Hatton
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
This was a decent book, I wouldn't recommend anyone rush out to buy it though. None of the characters are all that likable.
It did have a bit of a surprise at the end that I won't give away. I really don't have a lot to say about this book because I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it. On a grade level I would give it a C.
#124 The Wimpy Kid Movie Diary by Jeff Kinney
I host a boys' book club and this was our last selection. It had been some time since we met, but I never read the book until right before our meeting, which was Friday night.
Our format is that the boys read the book at home and have to come up with things about the book in a notebook. The minimum is 3 but they always go beyond. We meet at McDonald's or someplace kid friendly and have a meal then our meeting. After the meeting we move on to some fun activity such as bowling, skating, the movie etc. The previous book club was going to see the movie Diary of a Wimpy Kid.
The boys love the Wimpy Kid books and they have been book club books every time they come out.
It is a really cute series about a boy starting middle school and dealing with an obnoxious older brother and other pitfalls along the way.
They are great books that really open up the conversation about how to treat others and other good lessons. This time I had them write letters to the author. I will get them sent out this week and hopefully Mr. Kinney will enjoy them as much as I did.
I'm starting a younger book club for two of the boys' siblings. This one will have boys and girls so it should be interesting. It's a very rewarding way to spend some time, let me tell you. When one of the boys tells me, "I'm reading for fun," which is a first for him, I melted.
Our format is that the boys read the book at home and have to come up with things about the book in a notebook. The minimum is 3 but they always go beyond. We meet at McDonald's or someplace kid friendly and have a meal then our meeting. After the meeting we move on to some fun activity such as bowling, skating, the movie etc. The previous book club was going to see the movie Diary of a Wimpy Kid.
The boys love the Wimpy Kid books and they have been book club books every time they come out.
It is a really cute series about a boy starting middle school and dealing with an obnoxious older brother and other pitfalls along the way.
They are great books that really open up the conversation about how to treat others and other good lessons. This time I had them write letters to the author. I will get them sent out this week and hopefully Mr. Kinney will enjoy them as much as I did.
I'm starting a younger book club for two of the boys' siblings. This one will have boys and girls so it should be interesting. It's a very rewarding way to spend some time, let me tell you. When one of the boys tells me, "I'm reading for fun," which is a first for him, I melted.
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