What I'm reading this week (12/12/16)

Last week I finished:

I know that Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air is considered the tragic adventure book (which is why I read it), but I didn't care much for this book at all. In case you don't know what it's about, it's the true story a 1996 Mount Everest climbing expedition that goes horribly wrong. My main objection here is that Krakauer writes a book about personal experience like a journalist. There's a robotic this-then-that-then-that narration that just turned me off. I couldn't engage with the book or characters at all. Speaking of characters, there are so many mentioned that I could not keep them straight or remember who belonged to which expedition. I constantly felt myself skimming the book instead of reading it, then going back to force myself to read it, only to find myself skimming again. It was a terribly frustrating read, and I blame Krakauer for that. My final objection is that Krakauer spends a lot of time and energy defending himself, and I found that sort of distasteful. I feel bad for the man, as one of the only people to survive, he suffered terribly survivor's guilt, but this book didn't seem the proper platform for a defense. My rating: 3 stars.

I've been looking forward to Megyn Kelly's Settle for More for months and months. I was expecting a personal view of her life and career in law and later at Fox News, and this I got. It was interesting to see where she came from and how she got where she is. I was also expecting a strong pro-woman message on changing your life of the better, and this I got, too. But. Two things. One, I was annoyed at how much of the book was devoted to her campaign-long dustup with Donald Trump. The blow-by-blow was just exhausting. I don't follow this sort of thing because it's so junior high, but to read page after page after page devoted to it was just boring. Neither of them were fair to each other. Period. Second thing, for a really smart woman, she seems to lack the ability or desire for deep introspection. She is introspective, but she's more of a doer than and thinker, more of a decider than someone attuned to her emotions. I was expecting, well, more. More depth. More wisdom. Perhaps I expect too much from these autobiographies, they are, after all, written by humans. Still, I enjoyed the read and enjoyed learning more about Megyn Kelly. My rating: 3 stars.

This week I continue with:

 

I'm sort of bored with young readers' edition of The Boys in the Boat, perhaps because I know the story already.

Lulu Walks the Dogs is an interesting book. Its narrator is interactive with the reader, and Lulu is quite snarky/spunky.

I'm loving Living with Pattern. I didn't have high hopes for this one, but I'm very pleasantly surprised.

My audiobook:

 

Still loving Bryson's latest. I'd say it's my second-favorite of his many book. (First being In a Sunburned Country.)