Last week I finished:
I haven't yet read J. Ryan Stradal's first book, Kitchens of the Great Midwest, but when his new book came out this summer, I was intrigued. Waiting for my many audiobook holds to come in, with nary a one showing up on time, I went to the library in search of something to listen to in the meantime. The first audiobook I ran into was The Lager Queen of Minnesota, so I quickly checked it out before someone realized it should have been on the "Too Good to Miss" shelf or something. While I don't drink, and I've never even tasted beer, I still found the story charming and good. This is the story of family: two sisters who haven't spoken for decades, one of them a beermaker whose made her fortune; the other, a poor widow raising a granddaughter by herself; and the grown granddaughter who becomes a brewer herself. I fell in love with Edith, the grandmother who is known far and wide for her award-winning pies which she makes for nursing home residents. She talks like every Wisconsinite woman of a certain age I've ever known (my mother included), and the language is terribly witty to anyone who grew up around Minnesota. While I sometimes felt the story meandered a little too much, and I while I didn't enjoy some of the language, I liked the story and thought the audio version was very good. There are difficult parts, but it ends well, and it ends up being a feel-good story. My rating: 3 stars.
The next four reviews are for books read for Cybils award judging and represent my opinions. My reviews do not necessarily reflect the opinions of other panelists.
Some time ago I read Steve Sheinkin's Bomb (read my review here) which was a National Book Award Finalist and a Newbery Honor book. It was quite well done. So I was excited to see his newest book, Born to Fly on the Cybils list of nonfiction books. This is the true story of the 1929 Air Derby, where a group of women aviators flew across the country, each hoping to have the shortest time. This was the first race of its kind for women. Among the flyers was Amelia Earhart, the only name I was familiar with before I read the book. I enjoyed this book a great deal. It was fascinating. And while it made it clear these women were taking the lead for all aviatrices, they were also setting a course for all women who were finding their place just nine years after winning the vote and a decade before World War II. Piloting in 1929 was an uncertain business at best. In almost every race of this kind, there were tragedies, and yes, fatalities. This race was no different. Added to that, there is the strong suspicion of sabotage, though this claim was never proved one way or the other. My only quibble with the book is that it covered so many women, I had trouble keeping them all straight. Still, though this one is for children, I highly recommend it to grownups. It's that good. My rating: 4 stars.
In 1919, the 19th amendment to the Constitution was passed giving all US citizens the right to vote regardless of sex. Though four states allowed women to vote prior to this, this amendment brought to fruition the work of Susan B. Anthony and other suffragettes who had given their lives to the cause. In Susan B. Anthony: The Making of America, we learn about Anthony's early days as a Quaker, her impassioned work on behalf of the black vote and women's suffrage, her arrest when she voted (prior to the 19th amendment's passage), and her later years. She worked for women's rights up until almost the end of her life. She was brazen, brash, and outspoken, making enemies but also attracting generations of women to the work and tirelessly working for reform in other areas both civil and domestic where men had power and women did not. I don't think I've ever read a biography of Susan B. Anthony, and I'm glad I did. I could have done without the veiled implication at the very end of the book what pointed out that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote but lost the election to a man as if the results were another form of gender discrimination instead of a biproduct of the electoral college. Also, I question any person who wishes to give rights to some by saying they are better than others as Anthony and Stanton did when saying women were better, smarter, and more moral than men. Isn't that the same argument that kept black men and women enslaved based on race and inferior genetics? I was disappointed to read this, but perhaps it was hyperbole and not heartfelt belief. Overall a good biography of an important woman. My rating: 3.5 stars.
I have to admit, I was not looking forward to reading a children's book about digestion, but I'm here to tell you that not all kids books about digestion are created equal. Your Amazing Digestion from Mouth through Intestine, was a wonderful romp through the body, and, he-hem, outside of the body. And the best part is that it was done in rhyme! I'm a sucker for a well-rhymed quatrain, and Dr. Joanne Settle does as well with poetry as she does making bodily processes understandable to children. She also answers children's questions regarding swallowing gum and passing gas and, shall we say, sick expulsions. The illustrations throughout are cute and diverse, and I picked up a number of fun facts. For instance, an elephant, though he expels 26 gallons of urine at a time, takes the same time to do it--21 seconds--as a human or a dog. Perhaps only I find this fascinating, but there you go. I really enjoyed reading this book and I will be adding her other books to my TBR. My rating: 4 stars.
I love birds. The variations in size and shape and color and function, the beauty and absurdity. Jane Yolen and Heidi Stemple's new book Fly with Me covers everything a book about birds should: eggs, nests, beaks, bones, wings, feathers. It also talks about the evolution of birds from dinosaurs, state birds, bird song, migration, bird records, and birdwatching. There are original poems by the authors throughout, stories and folklore, and beautiful photographs. I highly recommend this one for anyone interested in birds. My rating: 4 stars.
Last year, I enjoyed reading Vern Yip's Design Wise (see my review here), so when Yip came out with a follow-up book this summer, Vern Yip's Vacation at Home, I added it to my list. This one wasn't as much fun for me as his previous book, perhaps because of the narrowed focus. While having a home that feels like a vacation sounds appealing, I don't think that's the kind of home I want. My travel experience consists entirely of hotels, and I've been in very few hotels that are warm and inviting. Clean, yes. Minimalist, yes. Gracious, yes. But not vibrant and meaningfully dressed. In Yip's previous book I liked looking at the pictures more than reading the book; this book ended up being the opposite. I found the vacation-at-home homes to be cold and sterile. And Yip is very, very opinionated about all aspects of decorating and housekeeping. I don't go to decorating books to be scolded about how often I change my sheets or how often to empty the dishwasher (which I don't have, thank you very much). So, this one, though beautiful, didn't really do it for me. I think I was not the intended audience. My rating: 3 stars.
I have dozens of poetry books that I've read once (most of them back in the 1990s) and haven't picked up since. So this month I decided to pick two very different volumes and give them a re-read. I chose Without by Donald Hall and Love Poems by Nikki Giovanni. Without is a collection of poems that detail his wife, Jane Kenyon's, also a poet, battle with cancer and subsequent death. My friend went to a reading by Hall when this book came out, and she said it was heartbreaking the way he came out on the stage and stopped dead in front of a large photograph of Jane. I've carried that image forward as if I was there that night. The poems are wonderful, if sad. Hall did what many of us would find impossible to do, detail our dearest love's passing on paper. It's a striking collection, worthy of a read. If you want to know how to write about death so that the raw emotion survives without sentimentality, this is the collection to go to. I'm glad I returned to it all these years later. My rating: 4 stars.
Nikki Giovanni's collection, also about love, is something quite different from Hall's. Giovanni's poems are sensual, sexual, and witty, by turns fluffy and forceful. A black poet, Giovanni is a good juxtaposition to Hall, a white New Englander. Her poems are rhythmic and jazzy and feel like music. Not all are about romantic love, and she dedicates the book to Tupac Shakur. A fine collection. My rating: 3.5 stars.
This week I'll be reading:
From school desegregation to Charles Darwin (in graphic novel form) to child poverty to moles, this week I'll be reading about a little bit of everything.
My current audiobook:
I've wanted to read this for some time, and it's worth the wait so far.
No comments:
Post a Comment