Pollan's philosophy boils down to seven words: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. The 64 rules presented in this book provide guidelines to follow that credo in a common sense way.I love that Pollan gives us wiggle room - there's no need to follow every rule, but several will surely stay with you as they're written simply and memorably. Some of my favorites:- Eat only foods that will eventually rot.- Eat your colors.- "The whiter the bread, the sooner you'll be dead."This book reads very quickly but the advice will be sticking with me for a long time.
If you're an animal lover you'll adore this tale of Homer the Blind Wondercat. He climbs books cases! Catches flies in his mouth in a single bound! Almost put down because no one would take him, Homer's story is touching and amazing. Extra bonus points that, at the time the afterward was written, all of her pets were still alive and doing well. Yea!
The Language of Flowers
I don't do contemporary literary fiction. There always seems to be tragedy on top of heartache, betrayals, pregnancies, and tears. I read to escape the awfulness of daily life so I'd rather not go there.The Language of Flowers, shelved as romance 154 times, confused my radar. On one hand, the idea of using the Victorian meanings of flowers (and the detailed dictionary in the back of the book) was appealing. On the other hand, once I got into the story complete with foster homes, abuse, and teenage pregnancies, I was out. What caught my attention more than anything was the location. I lived in San Francisco for a couple of years so I knew every place Diffenbaugh mentioned. While most writers get overly specific she stuck to generalities in such a way that it was impossible to pin down the street corner, or even the decade the book is set. The action could have taken place any time from the 60s or 70s to the present day creating an ethereal, timeless quality.So while I did not care for the book it's due more to my own prejudices than to the quality of the work. If heartache is your sort of thing dig in!
The way that Capote structured the narrative is wonderful - even though we know what is going to happen he manages to build suspense. From how the criminals carried out the murder and how the police tracked them down, to how the trial went and how the sentences were carried out, I felt pulled through most of the book.Most, but not all. In the middle a bunch of background material written directly by Hickock and Smith bogged me down. The accounts end up being important later in the story when the killers' mental state comes under scrutiny but at the time I was bored.I've always been against capital punishment and the facts of this case reinforced my convictions. It surprised me that at the time Kansas did not have a "life without possibility of parole" option and life sentences ended up equaling only 15 years of jail time. With those options death looks more appealing but... no. And not by hanging - the fact that hearts can beat for 20 minutes afterwards shocked me. Not good.
I'm not sure how I feel about this book. I went in thinking it would be an overview of modern poetry, with bits from poets I should try and why they're great. Orr, however, goes for a much broader overview of the craft with chapters like "The Political", "The Fishbowl", and "Why Bother?". Some bits were boring - his attempt to help us understand the modern poet just let me depressed. All these catty, unhappy people... I didn't like them any more once I knew them. On the other hand the chapter on ambition really made me think. What is ambition in the first place? Why does one person have it but another does not? And why do those views change over time? Lots of food for thought.Orr has a knack for figurative language and examples that make you smile, even if my eyes glazed over during the slower parts. Overall a meh read.
If you've seen the musical or movie you know the story - Opera Ghost terrorizes managers and presents himself as an Angel of Music to the up and coming Christine Daae. He gives her lessons and tries to make her fall in love with him with some success. But then Christine's childhood friend, Raoul, appears and sweeps her off her feet, making O.G. crazy. Kidnapping ensues.The novel is more fully realized than the musical and more intricately constructed. There were some lines in the show that seemed like throwaways ("Little Lotte", "hand at the level of your eyes") that are fully fleshed out here. Raoul and Christine are still flat character-wise, but the phantom and the Opera building itself shine. The ending felt a little rushed but I like how all the ends were neatly tied in an epilogue.I had a hard time putting the book down but it doesn't quite feel like a five star read. I want to reread it but it would be for pure pleasure, not because I could learn or gain something from the text. So let's call it a solid, enjoyable four star book.
It Had to Be You (Chicago Stars, #1)
I can see why many people like this book, but as a fairly new reader of romance, I have to wonder if it's a generational thing. Is this one of those pre-enlightenment books I've heard about where the guy is an asshole, the girl is a pushover, and the plot is maddening?Phoebe, a girl abused in her youth that has no real connections to her family, was left her father's football team, the Chicago Stars, in his will. She gets to keep the team if, and only if, the league basement Stars make the AFC championships this year.Being a smart girl, she decides the best thing to do is ignore the team completely as she knows nothing about football. Sure, contracts need signing and she's the only one with any legal authority, but hey, not her problem.She finally comes around and decides to go to work. In the process she falls in love with the coach, Dan, for no reason I can possibly see. He's quick to anger, crap at apologies, and seems to think fleeting good intentions make up for all his faults. The only person he is consistently nice to is Molly, Phoebe's teenaged half sister, as he demands admiration above all else and she readily provides it.As you can tell from my status updates many passages made me downright mad and getting to the end of the novel was hard. While Phillips' writing style is technically solid she leaves little for the reader to figure out herself. Even with all this explaining I find Phoebe's emotional journey unrealistic. I can kinda understand her using sex as power over men, but Phoebe vacillates between moods so erratically I never knew what to think.If I didn't need to finish this book for a challenge I would have never made it to the end. GRAH.
Guilty Pleasures (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, #1)
Things I found interesting during my most recent reread:- vampire blood does not heal. I love that.- you get scars from vampire bites - a price! Love that, too.
I read this book for a challenge - I needed something from 1992 that wasn't a thriller. I'm not a contemporary romance fan, but Nora Roberts can make anything tolerable.
The Firm (Penguin Readers, Level 5)
Thrillers are not for me. That's what this book taught me. The whole "oooo, they're getting closer, oh no!" thing just makes me nervous. The unwinding at the end was neat but didn't make up for the stress of the first 70%. Three stars because I have no idea how this is compared to other thrillers... and hopefully it'll stay that way for a while.
Once Burned (Night Prince Series #1)
Girl with supernatural ability? Check. Lonely, hot-as-all-hell vampire? Check. Jealousy when girl is ogled by other guy? Check. Weird ability gain? Check. Yup, it's a Frost novel!The first half was awesome - I devoured it! Good fight scene, the lovely sexual tension... delicious. The second half ticked me off, though. Whenever a "heroine" gets reduced to bait I hate it - I blame The Vampire Diaries. The ending also wrapped up too quickly, and epilogues irk me. Just write a proper last chapter! It's not like the action was set years after or anything.For starting out as a four but ending up as two, three stars.
My second golf book in a month. I'm not a fan of the sport but after the horrible [b:Tales from Q School|75635|Tales from Q School Inside Golf's Fifth Major|John Feinstein|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1170878965s/75635.jpg|73167] it deserved a second chance.Hiaasen decided to get back into golf after decades away and spent a year and a half, a sizable chunk of change, and many hours of frustration trying to get his stroke back. I knew I'd like him from the first line of the preface: "There are so many people to blame for this book that it's hard to know where to begin."What makes this memoir better than the Q School slog is that Hiaasen actually has a life and gets away from the action now and then. There are stories about his dad (a golfer himself, who died suddenly many years ago), how courses have become a refuge for wildlife in highly developed Florida, and fly fishing. All relate back to golf in one way or another and allow a breather from the action.While plodding at times (especially during the last tourney) the book was easy enough for this non-golfer to follow and enjoy.
This novel has to do with the Titanic, and from the description I thought a large chunk of the action would take place on ship, both before and after the crash. When the ship went down and our main characters were rescued by chapter three I knew I was in for a very different novel.Most of the story is about the Congressional hearings following the disaster and how they affected a small cast of characters. If you don't know much about the Titanic you may find this interesting. However, if you're like me and have read the hearing transcripts and newspaper reports of the time (it was a phase, I tell you) you'll be bored.Add in cardboard cutout characters and a stereotypical love triangle (shall she fall in love with the rich but sketchy man or the poor but awesome sailor?) and you get an unremarkable tale.
I'm not sure what I think about this book. It's put together oddly and has annoying affectations, but explores interesting issues.Pros first, as there's only one but it's a biggie - exploring female sexuality and the power it holds. To say any more would probably be a spoiler.Cons - oo boy, I have a list. First, there are over 200 chapters, each spanning one to three pages. Each chapter starts with a quote, sometimes just a phrase, that kinda sorta relates to the content. If there were one quote to puzzle out every 20 or 40 pages I'd do just that, but every other page? It wasn't worth the mental energy so I skipped them.Neither pro nor con - the book is in the second person. It adds an immediacy that serves the story but at other times grates.This is not a "happy read", but a decent one none the less.
Oh man, I loved this book. It is quiet and wonderful, following the life of Francie, a poor girl in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Her story is both individual and universal, as all good stories should be. I only knew the bare facts of pre-WWI New York (Tammany Hall, tenements) so it was interesting to see how normal families were affected. A big theme throughout the whole story is the battle between the dependable and the passionate. Is it better to marry a solid man or a passionate one? Is it better to be rich or happy, if one has to choose? Katie and Neeley have made their choices, and by the end of the novel Francie is considering hers.This is a book I can see myself coming back to in five or ten years' time to see what else Francie and her family can teach me. Highly recommended.
How to Marry a Millionaire Vampire (Love at Stake Series #1)
I picked up this book on the recommendation of a friend who said it was better than the synopsis. Said synopsis: vampire loses a fang and rings up an all night dentist to have it fixed asap. When he arrives at the office the lady dentist is being shot at. He saves her, of course, and vows to protect her as the Russian vampire mafia closes in.It was just as bad as it sounds.The story had a chance to rise above the sum of its parts but the whole thing felt like a draft. The vampire mythology didn't feel well thought out and the character list was longer and more convoluted than necessary. The ending was rushed and the heroine was promised everything she wanted - a big house, a big dog, a white picket fence, kids, the works. Oh yeah, our hero promised to do some DNA splicing so biological children could be possible because he's awesome like that. ~eyeroll~I like reading paranormal stories because of the unusual twists they put on an imagined world. When an author sets up restrictions then wishes them away (did I mention the hero also invented a daylight potion?) I feel cheated. Let vampires be vampires, and let contemporary romance be contemporary romance. Let's not confuse the two.