The local library

Just last Thursday, I had walked over to the local library to get a library card. I noticed that there would be a library book sale on Friday and Saturday, so of course I had to go. I got a couple of books on Friday, they were the same price as in the little book store the library has. On Saturday, you could get a whole bag of books for only $5. Since I saw some that I was interested in and some for my sister-in-law, I got a bag filled to bursting! After the purchase, I had to divide the books between two bags and still the bags were heavy!

So I got a whole bunch of books for my sister-in-law. She's teaching English to elementary school kids in Germany and would like to start a little library so they can read English books on their own if they'd like. I think I found a nice variety on different reading levels. I've read the following in the last couple of days:

• The Nancy Drew Notebook #4 - Bad Day for Ballet by Carolyn Keene
  
• Boy Can He Dance by Eileen Spinelli
• 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, a graphic classic based on the novel by Jules Verne
  
• Night-Time by Eileen Pettigrew
  
• Bonny's Big Day by James Herriot
  
• The Fox Went Out on a Chilly Night (this is an illustration of an old song and has especially detailed drawings)
  
• When the Wind Blew by Margaret Wise Brown
  
• Bear Mouse by Berniece Freschet
  
• Disney's Brother Bear

It wouldn't be fair to count these for the 50 books challenge (unless I get desperate towards the end of the year ;) ), but they were fun to read, I think the students will enjoy those and the others I included (even a couple of the Narnia novels by C.S. Lewis - I read those a few years ago).

Of course I like books on tape, and there were a few of those as well, so I added those to my bag as well.

Moved

By now, I've moved across the country to the Washington DC area. I'll come back to California, though. We haven't done any sightseeing yet, we have been busy enough with moving in and getting settled. We only took a couple of suitcases each, so we didn't even have any furniture. Just clothes and some of our favorite gadgets. For me it's books of course, notebooks and pens, and some spare postcards.

Since we haven't had TV, I've had a lot of time to read and have already read several books: The Color Purple by Alice Walker (for the online bookclub), The Yada Yada Prayer Group Gets Down and The Yada Yada Prayer Group Gets Real by Neta Jackson (they are books 2 and 3 in the series), and Blue Shoes and Happiness by Alexander McCall Smith (book 7 in the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency Series). Just before leaving California, I finished listen to the audio book The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester.

I liked them all in their own way. The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of The Oxford English Dictionary by Simon Winchester is a fascinating true story that involves W.C. Minor, who sends thousands of contributions for the dictionary from Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum, and Professor James Murray, who spent more than 40 years of his life on the dictionary project, and at some point becomes Minor's friend. My audio book edition on tape (6 tapes, unabridged) was a delight to listen to. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes non-fiction. I didn't know anything about the development of the Oxford English Dictionary before and it was fascinating to find out how it was written and at the same time hear about two special people who were involved.

I read The Color Purple for my online book club. I have wanted to read the book for quite some time, because I remembered liking the movie, although I didn't remember any details of the contents. At first, it was hard for me to get into the strange English that Celie is using, but as the story develops through her letters, it makes sense that she never had the chance to learn real English and I got used to the style.

The Yada Yada Prayer Group is a series of books that is really fun to read for a Christian woman. These women originally came together at a Women's conference, so they are all from different churches and are all very different types of women. But that way they complement each other and can support each other in their troubles. They also learn to be more open that way. I'd start reading with book one (which we did a while ago for a Christian book club that doesn't exist anymore) and then continue to follow the story. The books make you think about a lot of issues but without being preachy or trying to teach a lesson, the issues are embedded in the story naturally.

Blue Shoes and Happiness by Alexander McCall Smith is book 7 in the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency Series. I got hooked on this series also through that book club that doesn't exist anymore. Although beliefs are mentioned in the books every once in a while, these books are not specifically Christian and anyone who likes a cozy mystery would enjoy them.

(50 books in 2010 count: 27)

Goliath's Trap

Last year in Germany, I bought this book on sale, just because I like to learn more about Israel. Goliaths Falle: Israelis und Palaestinenser im Wuergegriff (Goliath's Trap: Israelis and Palestinians in a Stranglehold) by Moshe Zimmermann. I started reading some of the articles right away and then continued this year on my next trip. It was very timely after the attack on the ship that happened recently.

The book gave me another glimpse at the kind of thinking that is common among Israelis and among Palestinians and a little more understanding of why the conflict is so difficult to solve and is still going on. The vicious circle of escalating violence and counter-violence. The borders of the country that are still ill-defined have contributed to conflict all along since the existence of the state of Israel. Zimmermann knows that "the occupation in the long run hurts those the most who carry it out.

On a lighter note, I realized that some time maybe a month ago, I read the 6th book in the Number One Ladies' Detective Agency series "In the Company of Cheerful Ladies" and enjoyed it a lot. I'm looking forward to reading the next book.

(50 books in 2010 count: 22)

Recently read

I was taking a trip to Germany. While there, I was fortunate enough to receive the following book via bookcrossing.
Mögen deine Hände niemals schmerzen: Iran. Eine verbotene Liebe
by Bruni Prasske.
It was like living in two interesting worlds those two weeks. 1. I was visiting my family in Germany. 2. I read about Bruni's visits in Iran. She's a German woman who visited Iran and stayed with families there a couple of times.

Mostly on the plane, and the rest back at home, I read:

Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality
by Donald Miller.
I had heard some good things about the book, so I had planned to read it. It was not as interesting as I had expected. Some of the stories seemed more like ramblings to me. But I like the author's unconventional approach to Christianity.

And just the last few days, I read:
Curtain: Poirot's Last Case by Agatha Christie.

At the beginning of May, I had read The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle for my online reading group.

I noticed a parallel between the last two books. In both cases, the story is told not by the famous detective himself, but by their friend and partner. In both cases, it would be awkward if the detective told the story, but left out some details, but for the friend it's very natural to do so, because they don't know those details. The story flows better and is much more interesting that way. In both cases, at the end, the detective offers a summary of the solution of the case that clears up any loose ends.

Now, if I've counted correctly, I've read 20 books for the 50 books in 2010 challenge. Whether or not I'll read 50 over the whole year, it's fun to keep track of the books I'm reading.

Quick read

I heard of an online friend who needs some encouragement, so I'm sending her one of the books I had on my shelf: Heaven: Glimpses of Glory by Ellyn Sanna.
I decided to quickly read the book before sending it. It's one of those small gift books, I had received it through bookcrossing. I found it quite encouraging to be reminded of what heaven is like. The books would be great for any Christian who faces serious issues such as a potentially terminal illness.

Another audio book: Lily White

I read another audio book on cassettes: Lily White by Susan Isaacs. It was a recording on two audio cassettes, running time approximately 3 hours. The abridgement has been approved by the author.

I usually like reading mystery novels, but this wasn't my favorite, although it wasn't bad.

Lee White, a Long Island ciminal defense lawyer, defends Norman Torkelson, a career con man charged with strangling his latest mark. It's interesting to read how the case develops.
At the same time, we also get some of the back story of Lee's life, but really not enough to connect to her. Therefore, it seemed kind of irrelevant in the end, even though it takes up a lot of space in the book.

(This is book number 15 for the challenge)

Walking with God calmed me down

I just finished reading Walking with God by Ginni Otto. I got this book through a book ring on Bookcrossing.

I really enjoyed reading the book. It came just at the right time for me. I was stressed preparing the income tax return and whenever I needed a break, I picked up the book. It really calmed me down to read this story, even the obviously sad parts.

I found the premise of the book very interesting. I'm a Christian and I like Sci-Fi - Rachel's trip was kind of like time travel to me, so it fit right in. At first I also (similar to another reader) thought Why did the author leave out all these other details, especially during Good Friday, but then rethought that, it would have been too artificially crammed to fit all the Biblical details in. The story probably had a better flow this way. I think I would have enjoyed more details on the Jewish customs and how they interact (and sometimes seem to interfere) with the new Christian life of the people in the book.

For the next edition, someone should get the remaining typos out of the book. There were some funny ones in there, mostly misspellings like "know" instead of "now" that the spell checker wouldn't catch.

Overall, a great book, I'm glad I had a chance to read it. If there's a sequel, I'd love to read that as well.

I just found that it's in Google books, if it intrigues you, have a look at the Google books entry for Walking with God.

The Passion of Jesus Christ

I finished reading The Passion of Jesus Christ: Fifty Reasons Why He Came to Die by John Piper yesterday. I received this book from a bookcrosser one and a half years ago and finally got around to reading it.
I started during Lent but only finished yesterday. It's good to get all those reminders and also some new aspects that I may not have thought of why Jesus suffered and died.

I think because the author probably wanted a round number like 50 reasons and each chapter on just two pages, sometimes the text seemed a little contrived and didn't flow well. But overall the content was good to read.

I already have someone in mind who I'll probably send this book to very soon. But if you read this and would like the book and are willing to make a journal entry at bookcrossing, please let me know.

For the 50 book challenge,this is book number 13.

The Chocolate War disappointing

I was pretty doubtful about the book throughout. Why didn't any of the students tell their parents about the weird things that were going on at school? No parents at all seemed to be involved in anything at the school? That's pretty unbelievable. If there are really schools like that, especially "exclusive prep schools" like this one was supposed to be, that's really sad.

The end was very unsatisfying as well. I'm used by now to novels not having a happy or definite ending, but this was beyond that. More unfinished than any book even with planned sequels that I've ever read.

The cover of the audio book says "The Chocolate War is a brilliant, unflinching portrait of vicious mob cruelty and conformity in an exclusive prep school. A gripping story from one of the most provocative writers in modern young adult literature, it will hold you spellbound until the final, anguished fight on the football fields of Trinity School."

Well, the first sentence is true. But the story is not really gripping. I'm not easily giving up on books so I kept listening to it in the hopes it would improve, but this is so negative, it's definitely not suited for young adults. Every little glimps of courage and positive action is extinguished either immediately or after a while. That's worse than in the most grueling book or movie I've read and seen about eras like Nazi Germany even.

It's a disappointing and depressing book where the only lesson to be learned seemed to be that it's best to give up and conform because in the end everything will be useless anyway and the bad side wins. I guess some people like that kind of thing.

You might wonder why I even chose tho read this book. Well, it was one of the audio books on the sale shelf at my local library. And the description in the back sounded kind of interesting. That's about it. I made this into a bookcrossing book, maybe someone else will like it better.

Two more books

I listened to "A Visit to Mark Twain's House". It's really a radio show that was put on audio cassette, but I'll count it as a book, because it fits in well with all the audio books. I got it as a bookcrossing book, so I made a journal entry there.
This wasn't as exciting as I had expected. Yes, we did get to hear some snippets of Mark Twain's humorous writings, but they didn't package it as interestingly as they could have. Maybe it was Garrison Kaillor's voice, he sounded kind of boring even when telling something funny and he sounded disinterested when he described something that was interesting to him. The fact that music doesn't sound very good on my cheap cassette player may have contributed to it as well.

They do point out some of the interesting things that happened while Mark Twain lived in the house, though, and describe some of the interesting items and furniture he had.

Yesterday, my husband gave me a couple of German books that he didn't want anymore. I quickly read satirical drama The Physicists (Die Physiker) by Friedrich Duerrenmatt, it's less than 80 pages. It deals with issues concerning science and its responsibility for dramatic and even dangerous changes to our world. It also has elements of a murder mystery.

So now I'm up to 11 books for the challenge.