Okay, you guys warned me about this one, and you were right — devastating doesn’t begin to describe it. “…You can only subject people to anguish who have a conscience. You can only punish people who have hopes to frustrate or attachments to sever; who worry what you think of them. You can really only punish people who are already a little bit good.” Written as a series of letters to her husband, Eva Khatchadourian tells us the story of a Thursday that will forever be […]
Small Southern towns
This might not be a long book, but man does it pack a punch! “In a small Southern town during the 1950s, elopement and divorce were serious moral transgressions deserving of punishment.” In the late 1960s, Eugene and his older brother Bill lived under the thumb of their ambitious and strict grandfather. As the town doctor, their grandfather controlled his patients as much as he did his grandsons, by threatening to tell their secrets or refusing to treat them if they did not follow his […]
A lot has changed in 12 years
Some humor remains funny for decades. I’ve read books by Dave Barry that he originally published in the 1980s that still seem true and funny today. But other types of humor don’t hold up, and unfortunately Wanda Sykes’s Yeah, I Said It, full of political commentary during the 2004 election, is one of them. I actually really like Sykes’s stand up, and sections of this book seemed word for word from her acts. Most of the chapters are a page or two long, and headed by one single word or topic: […]
Norman Ollestad, Boy Wonder
Norman Ollestad lost his father, stepmother, and almost his own life at age 11 when their Cessna crashed in the mountains. In this memoir, he discusses so much more than the crash — mostly the strong and terrible passions of his father. “There is more to life than just surviving it. Inside each turbulence there is a calm—a sliver of light buried in the darkness.” Ollestad’s father, a passionate surfer and skier, failed to fulfill his personal dreams of becoming famous (although he did some acting as a […]
“Forget Orson Welles, and heed Walt Whitman: “I am large, I contain multitudes.”
This was a delightfully nerdy book to read, and I believe some of you delightful nerds might agree! “Speaking of palms, your right hand shares just a sixth of its microbial species with your left hand.” Every creature on Earth (yes, even you!) is home to millions of bacteria and other microbes. Ed Yong wants to explain why that’s a good thing. Microbes work together to shape our bodies and minds, to keep us healthy and protected, and many other duties. In some species, microbes […]
Can I say it sucked?
Well, this marks the second YA novel by M. T. Anderson that I’ve read, and probably the last (the other one, Feed, sucked, too). I feel like I can see what the author meant to do here, but if my assumptions about his intentions are correct, then he fell pretty far from his mark. If I’m wrong, well, then, I just don’t think we’re meant to be. “And I realize that the decision to be human is not one single instant, but is a thousand choices made very […]
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