This book highlights the year 1975, the year Jackie O became a widower twice over. As her children were growing up and she no longer had a husband to look after she needed to find a new project for herself. She needed to find a way to define herself away from her powerful husbands and she did so by going back to the passions she had as a child, journalism and writing, and mixing with the passions she had developed, restoration and preservation of architecture. In 1975 she took on the fight to save Grand Central Station, she wrote an article for the New Yorker (no special treatment and no byline!), and she became a consulting editor for a publishing house. This book is at times repetitious, and I can’t say that all of the information was new, but it was an interesting take on her life and it comes from a perspective that I hadn’t considered. At my age, I vaguely remember her death and how the headlines and questions I asked framed her life around her husbands - but this book really opened my eyes to make her seem like a real person, with desires and dreams of her own and the need to build her own narrative. If you have any interest in her life, I highly suggest picking up a copy and seeing how she was able to gracefully triumph over this particular year of hardship. [On Sale Today]
This book took a little bit for me to get into it (aka I fell asleep every time I started to read it on the train) but once I was hooked, I started flying through it. The tension definitely ramps up as then the multiple stories start to intertwine. There are some great characters, and the trademark Murakami magical realism has its place. The end was surprisingly anti-climatic through, and when I was done, I felt thoroughly disappointed. No need to re-read this one, or really, even, keep it on my shelf.
Well, simply put, this was as amazing as everyone said it is. I quite loved it and I’m so so so very happy that books 2 & 3 have already come out so that I don’t have to wait for them. (I just have to get off my ass and get them!)
*This review doesn’t say much because I knew NOTHING about the book, other than it was supposed to be awesome, and I loved not knowing anything when I started in. I’ll keep that tradition going for those of you who have managed to stay ignorant like me.
This is a really great mystery novel. It’s told by a rotating cast of characters, who all know a bit of the story, then pass it along to the next person to tell the next bit. About halfway through, I realized that I had previous read it, but couldn’t recall why (it’s really long!) or when (many years ago?) or who did IT. My favorite character is the old drunk servant who loves Robinson Caruso. I admit that I’m on a bit of a BBC kick (Downton Abbey & Doctor Who) so I kept imagining the novel as a British melodrama and who I would cast in it. It is in the public domain, so maybe one of these days, years, etc I’ll get around to writing a screenplay and casting who I’d like as the characters. It is a great, quick, read, despite the length and repetition of some information.
It took me a long time to get around to reading this, as I wasn’t entirely sure that I wanted to read it, honestly. This is exactly what it sounds like, a collection of stories from people living in East Germany after WWII. But, I’m really glad that I did read it. Anna does a great job of weaving in world history, personal history, and her own history into this collection of heartbreaking stories of people losing their loved ones and their own sense of trust in the world. I also just kept having to remind myself how recent this was. I remember when the wall came down, and to think that this happened so recently, in Germany, still blows my mind. I’m so happy this was written and that they stories can continue to live and hopefully keep history from repeating itself.
This is another one that I was skeptical of at the very beginning, as it’s written as a series of entries as a vet goes around a small town making calls for sick animals. The vet is also trying to solve an important mystery and grows more and more unreliable the longer the mystery goes unsolved. I almost stopped after the first page, as I was pregnant, and the subject material was so graphic, but the rest is not so bad, actually, the rest is not at all like the beginning, so don’t let that scare you off. It’s a really good read.
This was a truly bad novel. I bought it on super sale at a going out of business sale, because when I was in 5th grade I loved Christopher Pike and I thought I’d see if he stood up to my growing up. He does not. This was terrible in every sense of the word. It’s actually a collection of short pieces, put together in a multi-novel form. It was written a while ago, but it falls into the vampire trope, as we follow a female vampire who has turned human again, as she fights her enemies. The first part of this book is not sooo bad but eventually it falls off the rails and gets more sci-fi-y and honestly, I most ended up quickly skimming/flipping the pages of the end.
I really loved this collection of short stories. Honestly, a bit of time has elapsed since I read it, so I don’t remember specifics, but at the time I really really did love these stories (and wanted to do it justice in this review, which is not happening). Anyway, this book was passed off to be by a friend who also loved it, and I’ll be keeping the tradition going.
This was a great time-travel love story. If you know what the future holds, can you avoid it at any cost? The common themes of running away from your future, what you hope to be, and the ways to construct a happy life, at any cost, keep popping up. Despite making the same mistakes again and again, the main character is determined to end up with a life he thinks will bring happiness.
I liked this novel very much. A Stay-At-Home-Dad deals with parenthood, the SAHMs in the neighborhood, and his own feelings of loneliness in the suburban modern day. A great prep for parenthood, I’d say.
