The Graveyard Book

Sometimes I like to read kids books.  I took a class in college on children’s lit and it’s really far more complex than it seems.  Kids only like to read certain things.  Boys won’t really read a book about a girl, but a girl doesn’t care.  Harriet Potter wouldn’t have worked.   Another reoccurring theme is freedom, freedom from bedtime and parents rules.  This is why kids’ books often feature an absent parent or parents.  The Graveyard Book, by Neil Gaiman was no different.

The main character is Nobody Owens, a child who was orphaned under mysterious circumstances as an infant.  He escaped his parents’ murderer by hiding in the graveyard across the street from his house.  Here he met, and was raised by, the ghosts of those who had long been buried.  Not all of the ghosts are friendly, and Nobody, is still in danger from the man who killed his family.

Gaiman created a wonderful and dark world.  This isn’t a tough read, but it’s a fun one. 

African Diary

I am a huge Bill Bryson fan and have read most of his books.  I’m sure that they will end up here over time.  I am also a traveller.  Well, I was.  I did spend 20 months travelling around the world, alone.  Bryson has been a real travel inspiration for me.

When I unwrapped Bryson’s African Diary on Christmas I couldn’t wait to tuck in.  Bryson was invited by the charity CARE to visit their various camps and projects across Africa and to write a book about to raise money.  How could this be better?  You buy a book, have the joy of reading it, and manage to donate money to a worthy cause at the same time?  I know that you can buy books in charity shops, and I sometimes do, but this book was printed to raise money, it didn’t happen to  be given away and end up on a shelf in a shop.  

This book was short, too short.  Well, I often find books are too short or, as I’ll complain to my friends, it felt unfinished.  This rarely actually the problem, despite having turned the last page I’m not always ready to be finished the book. This often happens with Bryson’s books.  I want one more antidote, one more tale of beers with locals.  What can I say, I’m greedy when it comes to books! I kept having to  remind myself, that this was only a week long trip for Bryson, how much could there be to say?

Even though it was short, I enjoyed it.  You can get yours here.

Never Let Me Go

I’ve wanted to read this book for ages.  For some reason I kept putting it off though.  Maybe it was because my ban on book buying before hoping the pond, or because there was always something that I wanted to read just a little bit more.  I have no idea, but two weeks ago I ordered it used off of Amazon and it arrived a few days later.  

As soon as I opened this book I was hooked.  I was hoping that it would bring greater understanding to the fictional world that Kazuo Ishiguro created than the movie had.  There was definitely a bit more of a back story and explanation, but still not as much as I would have liked.  Despite this, I loved this book.

I don’t want to give away huge amounts, but I do want to give a small summary.  NeverLet Me Go follows a group of students from their isolated childhood to their adulthood.  The characters aren’t like everyone else; they were brought into the world for the purpose of donations. I don’t really want to explain much more, I want you to read it too!   I felt so connected to the characters.  They were easy to empathize with, and showed strength in light of a terrible situation that I could only ever hope to have inside of me.  They were the same, but different.  

I would definitely recommend this book for people who like to read fantasy books that have huge amounts of reality of them.  This means no dragons.  There’s enough of today in the book that makes it seem more realistic.  Also, if you like to read about unrequited love, this is a great one.

Anyone else read Never Let Me Go, or see the movie?  What did you think?

The Unreadable Book

Did you every have a book that you just couldn’t read?  Not that it was written in a foreign language, or even an old version of English, but still it was unreadable?  Sometimes you read something that you just don’t like at all, and sometimes there is no good reason.  It’s as if you feel like you should be enjoying the book, but you’re not.

I run across books like this every once in a while.  They are usually a gift, or even something that I read the back of and felt was right up my alley.  Then I get into the book and its just meh.  I feel like it’s a waste to not finish the book, but find myself picking it up and putting it down every time I see another book I like the sound of.  This creates the problem that when I do pick it up again I don’t remember everything t hat had been going on.  I then finish another 50 pages and then replace it with another book.  This can go on for ages.

Right now I’m reading one of these.  It’s called Legacy by Susan Kay.  This is exactly the type of book that I typically love.  A narrative history.  I have a hunch that reason I’m struggling with this book is that it’s a bit too manufactured.  As much as we know about Queen Elizabeth, I don’t think we know enough to hear her inner monologue.  However, this hasn’t bothered me in other similar books.

As of right now I’m about 300 pages in. I know that I’ll finish it, eventually.

Does anyone else ever have this problem? 

Book Review Thursday

Time for another book review that continues on my theme from the previous two weeks.  However, this time I’m going to write about a genre of books, not just one.

Almost a year ago my mother in law handed me a boot about a nurse in the 1940’s for my plane ride back to New York.  It was called a Nurse in Time and was by Evelyn Prentis.  I took it not having very high hopes so when I finished it only a little while after the plane took off (I read in the waiting area) I was shocked and I wanted more.  A Nurse in Time is about a girl from a farm whose mother decides that she is to be a nurse.  Prentis goes into great detail about her training, the matrons and the close friendships she formed with the other girls in her year.  It was mesmerizing.  And, of course, hard to find in the US.

When I finally moved here in October my MIL lent me a few more books in the same genre.  I read about a midwife named Jenny in Call the Midwife (currently on TV right now), and about growing up in an east end slum in Four Meals for Four Pence.  

For Christmas we each bought each other a few more books, luckily, we didn’t get the same ones so we both have loads more to read.  

I love that these are true stories about a time in history that isn’t a million miles away, but still far enough away that those who lived thru much of it are gone.  I guess I should mention that my degree is in WWII, so I’m sure that helps to fuel my obsession a bit.  They each paint a vivid picture of London and of the people who lived in conditions that we can’t even really imagine any more.  I highly recommend these books to anyone, but especially if you enjoy history but struggle with dry facts.  The narratives and larger than life personalities bring you into the book and you don’t even realize that its history until it’s over.  

I decided to write about these as a group to prevent myself from writing about each individual one!  I’m beginning to feel like I would like to read a straight up history book, but then again, my husband just read the hunger games trilogy so that is calling my name as well!  Any recommendations?