Books

Categories What's on Your Nightstand?

Nightstand (September 2011)

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I am happy to announce that I read everything I showed you in my picture last month (except for the books I own which are still in progress.) I pretty much never do that.

Books in progressBooks in the wings

Adult Fiction

  • Delusion by Peter Abrahams
    My second book by Abrahams, this one actually lived up to the designation “suspense”. I enjoyed this tale of a woman whose life unravels when a new bit of evidence releases a man who has years before been convicted of murder on the basis of her testimony.
  • Big Girl Small by Rachel DeWoskin
    When I reviewed Big Girl Small earlier this month, I couldn’t decide whether or not to recommend this book about a teenaged little person who finds herself the topic of a national scandal. It’s got some very mature content–and I’m not sure that the good is enough to outweigh the bad.
  • Job’s Niece by Grace Livingston Hill
    The least romantic GLH I’ve read so far. Included a very interesting page on dispensationalism. Yes, Carrie, I do enjoy these-and it is somewhat incongruous.
  • The Birthright and The Distant Beacon by Janette Oke and T. Davis Bunn
    I’m almost done with my library’s collection of Janette Oke–this is the last series (I think). I’ve been enjoying the series, but I’ll be glad to be done.
  • Amy Inspired by Bethany Pierce
    Sherry gave a rave review, Barbara a rather more subdued one. I agreed with both.

Adult Non-fiction

  • Dave Barry Turns 40
    I’ve gotta be almost done with Dave Barry’s 817s. Gotta.
  • Cats of Africa by Bosman and Hall-Martin
    Lovely paintings and drawings by Bosman, interesting text by Hall-Martin. It’s a coffee-table type book, but stuffed full of information about the 10 species of cats found in Africa: the cheetah, the leopard, the lion, the caracal, the serval, the black-footed cat, the African wild cat, the swamp cat, the sand cat, and the African golden cat.
  • Beaten, Seared, and Sauced by Jonathon Dixon
    A project memoir focused around the author’s chef’s training at the Culinary Institute of America. Reviewed here.
  • What’s So Great About Christianity? by Dinesh D’Souza
    Definitely a fascinating defense of Christianity. I’ve excerpted liberally in the following posts: The Future of Christianity, Christianity and the West, and Christianity and Science
  • Spousonomics by Szuchman and Anderson
    An absolutely fascinating book applying the principles of economics to marriage. A single woman, I’m not the target audience for this book. But I laughed my way through (Szuchman and Anderson are hilarious)–and even ended up applying my new-found knowledge of loss aversion to my computer-building trials.
  • American Spartans: the US Marines in combat from Iwo Jima to Iraq by James A. Warren, read by Dick Hill
    A fascinating history of the modern corps. I was rather amazed at the Corps’ ability to adapt to the wide variety of combat conditions they’ve faced throughout the past century. I was also rather amused at how the reader’s “Marine quoting” voice was gruff with a Southern accent.
  • The Art of Simple Food by Alice Waters
    I may pick this cookbook up again when I have more time to spend cooking. For now, the only recipe I used from this book was a chicken salad. I chose it because its instructions read: “First, make a mayonnaise.” Those instructions were definitely not for a beginner. The end result was rather blah, but I’m not sure if that wasn’t my fault since my mayonnaise broke and I had to mix in an additional egg yolk to get it to re-emulsify. Like I said, I might have to pick this book up again to see if it’s actually any good.
  • There Must Be More than This by Judith Wright
    Should have been titled “There must be more than this book”. Wright tries to teach people how to live a life of “more” by getting rid of their “soft addictions”, but her formless “more” leaves something lacking. True fulfillment can only be found in Christ. All other quests for “more” fall short.

Juvenile Non-Fiction

  • The Holocaust Heroes by David K. Freman
    Another title in the Holocaust Library series. Not sure whether they’re getting less good as I read more or whether it’s just the repetition of the same material (within the same series of books) that’s making me perceive these last couple as not as well written.
  • The Nobel Book of Answers edited by Bettina Stiekel
    A collection of essays by Nobel prize winners. Some are okay, most are vapid, all are patronizing. “How Do I win the Nobel Prize?” by Mikhail Gorbachev is a real winner (NOT!)

Juvenile Fiction

  • Anatopsis by Chris Abouzeid
    I have a full review of this dystopian novel in my notebook. Unfortunately, I haven’t yet transcribed onto bekahcubed. So, for now, I’ll say that I give it four stars–and kudos to the author for writing a non-morally-neutral book with witches and warlocks (and gods and demigods, for that matter.)
  • Close to Famous by Joan Bauer
    A great little story about a girl with big dreams and big secret–and who manages to accomplish big things, with the help of some neighborhood kids and the famous movie star who hides out down the street.
  • Pretty Dead by Francesca Lia Block
    In my handwritten review, I write that of all Block’s books I’ve read so far, this is the one I’m most likely to recommend. Alas, I haven’t transcribed this review either. Which means I’ll only warn you that it’s a vampire novel and, like the rest of Block’s work, it’s rather edgy.
  • What I Saw and how I Lied by Judy Blundell
    I gave this YA novel set in post-WWII America four stars, recommending it for more mature and thoughtful audiences because of its weighty subject matter.
  • The Hooded Hawk Mystery by Franklin W. Dixon

Children’s Books

  • Cam Jansen and the Mystery of the Babe Ruth Baseball by David A. Adler
  • Picture Books Bi-Bl
    I read a few dozen of these, including the ever-amusing Chicken Cheeks by Michael Blake.

As always, there are still more books in progress or in the wings, preparing to be taken up for the next go-round!

Books on NightstandBooks in travel bag

Don’t forget to drop by 5 Minutes 4 Books to see what others are reading this month!

What's on Your Nightstand?

Categories Book Reviews

Book Review: “Amy Inspired” by Bethany Pierce

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Sherry’s review had me quickly placing a hold at my no-longer-local library, to be picked up the next time I was in town. Barbara’s review, read after the book was already in my possession but not yet read, had me itching to find out whose view I would take.

Amy Inspired, by Bethany Pierce, turned out to be everything Sherry had said it was–and everything Barbara described.

Amy is almost thirty, a single adjunct writing instructor who dreams of being a published author. Unfortunately, she is plagued with rejection letters and is in a perpetual state of writer’s block.

She gives an exhausted agreement to her roommate’s proposal to let an out-of-work friend crash at their place while his apartment is being fumigated for bedbugs–and ends up flabbergasted to discover that she’s just obtained a second roommate, a seemingly permanent fixture on the living room futon.

Eli is the typical starving artist, a brooding sort who ekes out a living as a coffee-bar barista while women swoon over his every step. Amy is not immune to his charms, but rather wishes she was, considering that he’s her roommate–and that he has a girlfriend (albeit a girlfriend who’s studying abroad and therefore not around).

As Sherry wrote, Amy Inspired has a very true-to-life ring to it. I couldn’t help but nod my head in recognition as Amy reads yet another freshman essay that makes absolutely no sense:

“Since the dawn of time there have always been forms of entertainments. And like most everything else, entertainment has been criticized since there existed a Being knowledgeable enough to know how to do it. In ancient times, Jesus was criticized by many of the people and even went so far as to crucify him by nailing him to a tree in front of all his fans.”

Yep, that’s freshman (or even sophomore) writing. (Three semesters teaching at the university level is more than enough to make a cynic of this particular lover of the written word.)

I felt as though Amy (er, Bethany Pierce writing as Amy) were writing my own heart when she described her thoughts after watching a marathon of “A Baby Story”:

“It made me want to scream and push, to be part of a miracle. It provoked cravings for the sweet powder smell of a baby’s hair. I told myself this was a biological phase on par with the hormonal revolution that made prepubescent boys ache at the sight of breasts and bucks chase doe tails right into oncoming semis. But still.

I’d tried praying about these feelings, but had a bad habit of praying tangentially…. All the years I’d wanted a husband, I prayed God would make me content as a celibate, confident that if He saw my willingness to remain forever His chaste servant, He would see fit to send me an unexpected blessing of a very handsome man….And now whenever the desire for a family of my own began to gnaw at my heart, I prayed for my students and thanked God for the brood He’d already given me.

Meanwhile, Valerie, who had never waited on God for a blessing in her life, was in the third trimester of her pregnancy and looked positively Rubenesque.”

When Amy goes to dinner with Eli, she orders beer to prove that she’s not the teetotaler he might think her because of her fundamentalist background. The exchange is essentially honest about the predicament that faces my generation of believers. Determined to not be legalists, we sometimes lose our identities trying to be all things to all men. So what if Amy doesn’t like beer? If she doesn’t order it, Eli might think she’s looking down on him, considering him an inferior Christian because he drinks. So she orders a beer, only to discover that the tattooed artist doesn’t drink.

For all that I can identify with in this book, there is certainly plenty that I can’t identify with. Amy’s Christianity is the Christianity I’ve seen in quite a few of my peers. She’s rejected her legalistic upbringing, but hasn’t quite figured out the spirit behind the law–which leaves her with a trembling hodge-podge of religious belief, but no cohesive theology out of which to live her life.

It is this, I think, that leads to some of the “edgy” scenes Barbara pointed out. Amy dates a nonbeliever, has a male roommate (for as long as Eli’s around), and reflects on past experience where she got down to bra and panties before putting a kibosh on sex. These are scenes I haven’t experienced (thank You, Lord!), but ones I’ve seen among the once-churched or quasi-churched of my acquaintance. Throwing off legalism, a young Christian culture has emerged that has little moral foundation except reactionism–resulting in dangerous skates to the edge of a precipice (and beyond).

And then there is Barbara’s objection to Amy’s “fundamentalist” background and its inherent stereotype. In truth, I couldn’t quite make out what the author presumes fundamentalism to entail. Apart from the brief comments about tracts in toilet paper rolls, True Love Waits campaigns, teetotaling, and not dancing, the majority of the references are simply to Amy’s childhood church “First Fundamentalist Church”–leaving the reader to fill in his own stereotypes.

In my opinion, this was the author’s great failing. Throughout the book, she does a fantastic job of showing rather than telling, of describing things so that the reader can experience them. Yet in reference to Amy’s childhood religion, she relies on the hackneyed “fundamentalist” stereotype in lieu of creating a flesh and blood congregation with real-live beliefs and practices. It’s rather disappointing.

Nevertheless, I felt that the upsides of this novel–its realistic depiction of life as a single young Christian and the author’s masterful use of language–definitely outweigh the downsides. This is a novel worth reading, both for enjoyment and as a means of understanding some of the struggles facing today’s single Christian (and the moral ambiguity facing many young believers who have uprooted themselves from legalism without being subsequently replanted in the fertile and stabilizing soil of the gospel of grace.)

Rating: 4 Stars
Category:Christian fiction
Synopsis: Amy, a single almost 30-year-old college-writing-instructor-slash-writer-who-hasn’t-been-published, finds herself thrown off-kilter by Eli, the artist who’s now sleeping on her living room futon.
Recommendation: Lovely writing, accurate depiction of many of the realities facing my generation of church kids, “edgier” (as Barbara put it) than most Christian fiction.

Categories Book Notes

Christianity and Science: Notes from “What’s So Great About Christianity?”

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The following are chapter synopses and short quotes from the third section of Dinesh D’Souza’s What’s So Great About Christianity? This third section is entitled: “Christianity and Science”

Chapter 8:
D’Souza argues that Christianity is based on reason–and that Christian theologians throughout the ages have been masters of reasoned defenses of Christian thought.

“My point is that the kind of reasoning about God that we see in Augustine, Aquinas, and Anselm is typical of Christianity. There is very little of this in any other religion. And out of such reasoning, remarkably enough, modern science was born.”

Chapter 9:
D’Souza states that a fundamental assumption of the modern scientist is that the world is ordered, logical, rational, and law following. He argues that this belief in an ordered natural universe is directly pirated from Christianity.

“God is sacred and made the universe, and the universe operates lawfully in accordance with divine reason. At the same time Christianity held that the universe itself is not sacred….The Christian universe is ordered and yet disenchanted. Moreover, Christianity…teaches that man was made in the ‘image’ and ‘likeness’ of God. This means that there is a spark of the divie reason in man, setting him apart from other things and giving him the special power of apprehending them. According to Christianity, human reason is derived from the divine intelligence that created the universe.”

Chapter 10:
D’Souza argues that the story of Galileo being persecuted by the church for his heliocentric theory is just that–a story.

“Galileo was a great scientist who had very little sense. He was right about heliocentrism, but several of his arguments and proofs were wrong. The dispute his ideas brought about was not exclusively between religion and science, but also between the new science and the science of the previous generation. The leading figures of the church were more circumspect about approaching “

Categories Reading My Library

Cheeky Chickens and other animal ends

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Parents of youngsters might not find Michael Ian Black’s Chicken Cheeks quite as fun as I did.

After all, since I don’t actually live with a little one, I don’t have to put up toddler and childhood potty humor ad nauseum.

Chicken Cheeks Book Cover

The format of this children’s book is simple–a picture of an animal together with that animal’s name and a corresponding euphemism for that animal’s bottom.

My favorites?

“Gnu Wazoo” and “Duck-Billed Platypus Gluteus Maximus”.

Yes, this book breaks my parents’ cardinal rule in dealing with juvenile humor: never let them know that potty talk is funny.

But, in this case, it is.

This book of “ends” is both amusing and imaginative.

Perfect for maiden aunts to spoil the minds of their nieces and nephews with :-)

Reading My LibraryI’m still reading my way through the children’s picture book section of my no-longer-local library. For more comments on children’s books, see the rest of my Reading My Library posts or check out Carrie’s blog Reading My Library, which chronicles her and her children’s trip through the children’s section of their local library.

Categories Book Notes

Christianity and the West: Notes from “What’s So Great About Christianity?”

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The following are chapter synopses and short quotes from the second section of Dinesh D’Souza’s What’s So Great About Christianity? This second section was entitled: “Christianity and the West”

Chapter 5:
D’Souza argues that Christianity is originally responsible for the concept of limited government and separation of church and state

“Augustine argued that during our time here on earth, the Christian inhabits two realms, the earthly city and the heavenly city….To each of these realms the Christian citizen has duties, but they are not the same duties….some remarkable conclusions follow….It means that the earthly city need not concern itself with the question of man’s final or ultimate destiny. It also implies that the claims of the earthly city are limited, that there is a sanctuary of conscience inside every person that is protected from political control.”

Chapter 6:
D’Souza argues that Christianity’s conception of the value of the ordinary but fallible individual has led to many of the features of Western civilization that we hold most dear, including separation of powers and checks and balances for governments, and capitalism as an economic system. (He also argues that the value of the ordinary but fallible individual led to giving family a prominent role in society, but I felt that his argument was hard to follow and rather weak.)

“…Capitalism satisfied the Christian demand for an institution that channels selfish human desire toward the betterment of society. Some critics accuse capitalism of being a selfish system, but the selfishness is not in capitalism–it is in human nature.”

Chapter 7:
D’Souza argues that Christianity is fundamentally responsible for the concepts of human rights and individual freedom.

“The preciousness and equal worth of every human life is a Christian idea. Christians have always believed that God places infinite value on each human life He creates and that He loves each person equally. In Christianity you are not saved through your family or tribe or city. Salvation is an individual matter…These ideas have momentous consequences.”

Categories Book Reviews

Book Review: “Big Girl Small” by Rachel DeWoskin

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Judy Lohden is a sixteen year old girl who’s starting out at a new elite performing arts school and she has all the drama that goes along with that situation–making new friends, finding her niche, liking a boy, wondering if a boy likes her, going to parties, facing peer pressure. All the usual sort of things, except for one thing: Judy is a little person, which amplifies everything.

Instead of just being “the new girl”, she’s the new dwarf.

While most of Judy’s classmates act awkwardly around her, a few people don’t seem to make a big deal out of Judy’s being a little person. It just so happens that one of the ones who doesn’t make a big deal about it is the boy Judy has a crush on.

Score!

Life seems to be going exactly as Judy wishes it when she auditions straight into Senior Voice as a Junior (which means she’ll be in the same class as her crush, Kyle), when Kyle offers to take her home after school, when Kyle wants to sleep with her.

But her “everything’s-going-my-way” life comes to a sudden stop when IT happens.

It’d be bad enough if it had happened to anyone–it’s even worse because Judy’s a dwarf, and therefore pretty recognizable.

Judy takes off to a sketchy motel where she hides away from her family, her friends, and the media.

This is where Big Girl Small opens: with Judy in her motel room, playing over the events of the school year again and again.

I don’t know exactly how to sum up this book, or how to express my feelings regarding it.

I liked how the story was told: in first person, flipping back and forth between the present (in the motel) and the past (during the school year). Judy’s voice portrays what she is: a smart but still definitely teenaged girl.

The storyline was coherent, was engaging in a “morbid curiosity” sort of way.

The content was… overwhelming.

This isn’t a YA novel, but it’s similar to YA in that it’s full of tense topics and shocking actions. There’s sex, underage drinking, marijuana use, lying… and, um, gang-banging.

All of this is treated as completely normative, except for the last bit, which is sort-of discouraged (by way of encouraging boys to homosexual encounters.)

Which is why…

I can’t really say what I think of this book, or whether I would ever recommend it to anyone. It’s definitely a very mature book–but I’m not sure that it has enough redeeming value (even in terms of entertainment value) to overlook the “mature” content.

Rating: ?? 2 Question Marks
Category:YA-like adult novel
Synopsis: Judy Lohden (a little person) is hiding out in a motel after a scandal disrupts her junior year of high school.
Recommendation: I don’t think I’d recommend this, but I’m not sure.

Categories Book Reviews

Book Review: “Beaten, Seared and Sauced” by Jonathon Dixon

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Martha Stewart, The Cooking Channel, and Food Network have made foodies of us all.

Okay, so we haven’t all become food snobs, but the ranks of food-o-philes have certainly swelled.

For many of us, that means we salivate over cookbooks, avidly watch cooking shows, and indulge our imaginary gluttony via online recipe blogs. Some of us clip those recipes and give them a try in our own kitchens, purchasing flavored vinegars and exotic spices, trying new varieties of vegetables and grains; while others of us only dream of the luxuries of saffron and quinoa and goose.

Jonathan Dixon has been a foodie for years, enjoying cooking in the privacy of his own home while passing through a collection of dead end jobs. He dreams of being a better cook, and even takes some cooking classes; but he’s still pretty discontent with his life.

Then a family friend urges him forward. Why not enroll in chef school? Why not just do it?

And so, on the cusp of his thirty-eighth birthday, Jonathan takes the plunge and enrolls in the prestigious Culinary Institute of America.

Beaten, Seared, and Sauced is Jonathan’s memoirs of his experience of becoming a CIA chef.

This book appealed to my inner foodie and made me itch to go back to school myself-except not.

I loved hearing all about how the student chefs learned to cut a perfect dice and make a perfect bechamel. I loved reading of how they learned to tell by touch whether a roast chicken was done. I loved that they learned how to determine when a piece of produce is perfectly ripe.

I want that knowledge. I want those skills.

But I definitely don’t want to go to culinary school.

Dixon’s memoir makes that perfectly obvious.

Culinary school is a mess of sleeplessness, yelling instructors, and hard-to-get-along-with class/work-mates. It’s intense.

And this girl is reaching the age where she’d fit the “non-trad” bill–and Dixon’s difficulties with his (younger) fellow students and with assimilating rapid-fire data already start to hit home. I’m too old to go back to school–at least, too old to go back to that sort of school.

So I’ll indulge my fantasies vicariously, through Dixon’s memoir–and keep dreaming of someday embarking upon a self-study program to give myself even just a fraction of the skill Dixon describes.

As a food person, an avid learner, and project memoir junkie, I greatly enjoyed this memoir. My guess is that fellow foodies and/or project memoir lovers will enjoy it as well.

Rating: 3 stars
Category:Project Memoir
Synopsis:38 year old Jonathon Dixon chronicles his experience of becoming a chef at the Culinary Institue of America
Recommendation: If you’re a food junkie and/or a project memoir lover, you’ll probably enjoy this title. If neither of those is quite up your alley, this book probably isn’t either.

Categories Book Notes

The Future of Christianity: Notes from “What’s So Great About Christianity?”)

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I’m cheating somewhat and just using my book notes from What’s So Great About Christianity? for this week’s Week in Words.

The following are chapter synopses and short quotes from the first section of Dinesh D’Souza’s What’s So Great About Christianity? This first section was entitled: “The Future of Christianity”

Chapter 1:
D’Souza argues that Christianity is experiencing worldwide growth, while atheism is declining worldwide.

“Nietzsche’s proclamation “God is dead” is now proven false. Nietzsche is dead. The ranks of unbelievers are shrinking as a proportion of the world’s population….God is very much alive , and His future prospects look to be excellent.”

Chapter 2:
D’Souza argues that, while atheists search for an evolutionary reason for religion, it is really atheism that lacks an evolutionary basis. After all, the religious are rapidly reproducing their genes while atheists fail to (biologically) reproduce.

“The important point is not just that atheism is unable to compete with religion in attracting followers, but also that the lifestyle of practical atheism seems to produce listless tribes that cannot even reproduce themselves.”

Chapter 3:
D’Souza describes the rise of militant atheism and its desperately offensive (think Hail Mary) “war on religion”.

Chapter 4:
D’Souza argues that atheists attempt to use schools (both primary schools and universities) to indoctrinate children and young adults to atheist ideology.

“For the defenders of Darwinism, no less than for its critics, religion is the issue. Just as some people oppose the theory of evolution because they believe it to be anti-religious, many others support it for the very same reason. This is why we have Darwinism but not Keplerism; we encounter Darwinists but no one describes himself as an Einstainian. Darwinism has become an ideology.”

The Week in WordsDon’t forget to take a look at Barbara H’s meme “The Week in Words”, where bloggers collect quotes they’ve read throughout the week.

Categories Book Reviews

Book Review: “What I saw and how I lied” by Judy Blundell

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Evie is fifteen, her stepfather has returned from the war, and life is good.

Okay, so they still live with her step-father’s mother, who doesn’t quite get along with Evie’s mother. So Evie’s step-father is drinking more. So Evie’s parents are fighting more often.

But Evie’s main concerns are that her mother won’t let her wear grown-up clothes and that she can’t seem to attract the attention of her crush.

Then her stepfather decides to take them on a vacation to Florida–and Evie meets (and falls in love with) the dashing young Peter (who had served with her stepfather in the War.)

Awash with the headiness of a new environment, new clothing (one of her mothers’ new friends insisted), and new love, Evie thinks of little but how she can next see Peter. Then a hurricane hits and Evie’s world comes crashing down.

I added What I saw and How I lied to my TBR list on the basis of Semicolon’s review (I think), but by the time I’d gotten around to picking it up from the library, I’d forgotten the review and had no idea what to expect. (Even if I’d read Semicolon’s review more recently, I’m not sure I’d have known what to expect. Sherry does a good job of not giving spoilers.)

At any rate, I read with only the book’s title to clue me in on what was happening–and that kept me guessing for a good long time.

I knew something was wrong, that something wasn’t adding up in Evie’s idyllic world–but I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was. What’s more, if Evie (the narrator of the book) had seen something, why wasn’t she telling me? What had she seen? And how had she lied?

I was almost upset with her for not sharing–but I kept reading in the hopes that she would at last reveal.

And reveal she did, with a punch that left me gasping for air.

Other reviewers have called this a coming-of-age novel, and that it is. It’s about a loss of innocence, a loss of trust. It’s also a story about stealing, lying, adultery, and murder. As my grandmother would say, it’s a story of sex and violence.

But a well-told story.

This is definitely not a children’s book. But the sex and violence found in this book is not the gratuitous or experimental raciness of a typical YA novel. It’s tasteful (mostly) and integral, contributing to Evie’s awakening to the world of lies and truth, deception and integrity, lust and love.

I very much enjoyed reading this novel and recommend it for discerning, mature readers.

Rating: 4 stars
Category: YA-Coming of Age Novel
Synopsis:Evie grows up rather quickly after a winter in Florida where she encounters lust, lies, deception, and discrimination.
Recommendation: I think thoughtful readers are likely to enjoy this, while those looking for either escapist or sensational fiction will be disappointed. I personally enjoyed it a great deal.

Categories What's on Your Nightstand?

Nightstand (August 2011)

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Has August flown by or what?

I can’t believe it’s already time for another Nightstand post. Unfortunately, I just took a batch of books back to the library, so you can’t see photos of what I’ve read (except what I’ve read since Saturday or kept back for review). Fortunately, I did log my books–and I even logged them online for the time being (since my computer is still in limbo.)

So, here’s my box of finished books followed by my list of books read:

Books read

Adult Fiction

  • Crying Wolf by Peter Abrahams
    I expected suspense based on the front cover quote from Stephen King “–something obscured by barcode–merican suspense novelist.” This didn’t turn out as suspenseful as I expected, but that was a good thing from my point of view. Instead, it was an engaging if not exactly well-told story about a poor young man, a set of rich twins, and the dangers of crying wolf.
  • The Gold Shoe by Grace Livingston Hill
    I started reading this on my way down to KC to skydive–and ended up reading the first seven chapters out loud to my traveling companions. I quoted a passage from this book in yesterday’s post
  • Duskin by Grace Livingston Hill
  • The Sacred Shore by Janette Oke and T. Davis Bunn

Adult Non-fiction

  • Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua
    Why are Chinese children (or the children of Chinese immigrants) so much more likely than Western children to be prodigies? Amy Chua says it’s because of the way Chinese parents parent. Chua begins this memoir on a soapbox–and doesn’t quite get back down as she realizes (and reveals to us in story) that Chinese mothering isn’t working with her younger daughter. I enjoyed this quite a bit-but I can understand why it was so controversial when it first came out. Chua’s Chinese parenting sounds an awful lot like child abuse to Western ears–except that these Western ears tend to register the same complaints as she against “Western parenting”, making them much more likely to consider parenting on the Chinese end of the spectrum.
  • God’s Diet by Dorothy Gault
    I reviewed this title here. Prepare for a mini-rant from this particular Registered Dietitian.
  • Dave Barry is NOT making this up by Dave Barry
  • My Fair Lazy by Jen Lancaster
    Jen Lancaster goes on a “Jenaissance”–freeing herself from the addiction of reality TV to become a “cultured woman”. I loved reading about Jen’s theatre-going experiences, pet troubles, and foot-in-mouth moments. I also loved that there was none of the conservative-bashing that seems so obligatory for memoirs these days. Jen happens to be a conservative herself, but she makes a point to leave her politics out of her writing (except inasmuch as the fact that she’s a conservative makes her even more fish-out-of-water among the hoity-toity culturata she’s now brushing shoulders with.)
  • The Most Reluctant Convert by David C. Downing
    This was a very good biography of C.S. Lewis, discussing his religious life from childhood to conversion. I wrote a mini-review in my Chronicles of Narnia Reading Challenge wrap-up post

Juvenile Non-Fiction

  • The Holocaust, Hitler, and Nazi Germany by Linda Jacobs Altman
    Not as well-organized as the other books in this series.

Juvenile Fiction

  • Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
    I had definitely forgotten a lot from when I read this as a child. I think I love this book. I quoted from it here.
  • Little Men by Louisa May Alcott
    I might love the sequel even better. There’s something about a group of almost wild children… Rainbow Valley was one of my favorites in the Anne series. Should I be surprised that I’m also in love with Little Men (or Jo’s Boys, as it has alternately been titled-Whoops, guess I was wrong on this one. Jo’s Boys is a separate book, and one that sounds rather more sensational than the wholesome Little‘s.)?
  • The Mystery in the Snow created by Gertrude Chandler Warner

Juvenile First Readers

  • Bones and the Math Test Mystery by David A. Adler

Children’s Picture Books

  • To & Fro, Fast & Slow by Durga Bernhard
  • The Girl in the Castle inside the Museum by Kate Bernheimer
  • The Tortoise and the Hare Race Again by Dan Bernstein
  • The Curious Demise of Contrary Cat by Lynne Berry
  • Are You Going to Be Good? by Cari Best
  • Easy as Pie by Cari Best
  • Goose’s story by Cari Best
  • Last Licks by Cari Best
  • Sally Jean the Bicycle Queen by Cari Best
  • What’s so Bad about Being an Only Child? by Cari Best
  • Three Cheers for Catherine the Great by Cari Best
  • Shrinking Violet by Cari Best
  • Montezuma’s Revenge by Cari Best
  • Wolf Song by Mary Bevis
  • The Artist by John Bianchi
  • Welcome back to Pokeweed Public School by John Bianchi
  • Spring Break at Pokeweed Public School by John Bianchi
  • The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams Bianco
  • The People with Five Fingers by John Bierhorst
  • Turkey Bowl by Phil Bildner
  • Twenty-One Elephants by Phil Bildner
  • A Regular Flood of Mishap by Tom Birdseye
  • Airmail to the Moon by Tom Birdseye
  • Soap! Soap! Don’t forget the soap! by Tom Birdseye
  • Look Out Jack! The Giant is Back! by Tom Birdseye

In addition to the books I’ve finished this last month, I have a number in progress (currently in a tote for easy travel!)

Books in progress

And I was unable to resist the lure of more books when I went to the library on Saturday, so I am almost certainly going to (once again) have to return books unread when I make my next trip down to the library in three weeks.

Books in the wings

Don’t forget to drop by 5 Minutes 4 Books to see what others are reading this month!

What's on Your Nightstand?