September Good Reads

I actually read 3 brand new books this month.

Empty Mansions: The Mysterious Life of Huguette Clark and the Spending of a Great American Fortune by Bill Dedman released Sept. 10.

Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital by Sheri Fink also released Sept 10.

The Returned by Jason Mott released August 27.

I don't think I've read that many uber-current books in a while. Usually I'm a little slow to discover the good stuff.

Empty Mansions

I loved this. It had all the elements of a great read: history, wealth, big houses, and a recluse.
The book starts with a history of Huguette's father and then morphs into descriptions of the amazing houses he built. That is followed by a social history of Huguette and how she turns into an eccentric old lady living in a hospital for 20 years while commissioning doll-houses to be built for her around the world.
The first half is the best since it is mostly history, but the book starts to bog down once Huguette is living in a hospital and dies causing an investigation into the people closest to her and her last two wills. It gets a little boring.
What ticked me off the most with this book that I loved was that it ended too soon. I was reading it on my Kindle, which means reading it blindly, with no idea how long a chapter would last or where the book would end. I got to 65% and that was it. I was expecting 35% more and all there was left was notes and bibliography. That is frustrating.

Five Days at Memorial

I loved this one too. It was a page turner. I felt guilty because I have not read much about Katrina and her aftermath. I am so far removed here in  Arizona, that it just wasn't on my radar. (I do not watch news). I picked this up to educate myself and I was not disappointed. Sheri Fink does a really great job of not taking sides on this hot-button topic of euthanasia. She presented the facts as she had investigated them and then followed the court rulings in the aftermath.
Of course the first half of the book was riveting. It gave an hour by hour and day by day account of what happened in the hospital. I couldn't stop reading. It was fascinating the way things disintegrated so quickly and the way that no one seemed to be in charge anywhere. I learned so much.
The second half of the book focuses on the legal case that was brought against one of the doctors and two nurses accused of hurrying along death for a few patients. I really didn't know which side to cheer for. Both sides had a real point. I have since been thinking  a lot about the choices that are made in extreme situations. Can one be help accountable for them? When is the end of life? That is always the sign of a good book if you are still thinking about it after you have put it down.

The Returned

I read a good review of this and put it on my library list. The premise is awesome. People that have been long dead are suddenly returned to the earth. I was totally on board. The story is told from a very emotional perspective with relationships examined and questions that are asked.
The whole time I was reading it I was waiting for that Stephen King moment, but it never came. There is nothing creepy or weird or supernatural about this story, but I wish there was. I want Stephen King to read the Stephen King version.
This was interesting, but not grabbing and memorable.
It will be turned into a TV series next year. Maybe the producers will be able to take an awesome idea and give it a little kick to spice things up a bit. It certainly needs it.

Oyster Review

So I've been trying to use Oyster for the past week to get a handle on this new app.

At first I was really excited. The books looked good, the app worked well. I was really impressed with the notes on the bottom of the screen that told me the number of pages (iphone pages) left until the next chapter. Often times with ebooks it's hard to know how much further to read. Where is the next chapter? Do I have to go all the way back to the table of contents to find out? With Oyster that is no longer a problem.
The up-swipe is different from other e-readers, but is easy to get used to.

What I realized that may not make me a constant user is that all of the books that are available on Oyster are also easily available at my local library. They are not new releases. The library won't have long hold lists any more that you would have to wait on to check out the book. It just seems like I will be paying $10/month for books that I won't own and can get at my library.

As a librarian I am of course an advocate for libraries and Oyster seems like a competitor, but only if I needed to pay to get library books.

Last week all the National Book Awards finalists were announced. I immediately looked up the synopsis of all the books and then put holds at my library on all the ones that looked like good reads to me. Friday morning I went and picked up about 8 books. It was free and they are fabulous books that are not available on Oyster.

The other problem I had was trying to squeeze in my Oyster reading between my Kindle reading and my library book reading. It was hard. Maybe that's because I have such a large to-be-read-pile, but still it felt like pressure to get my $10.00 worth for the month. There are so many reading apps and ways to read, that forcing my self to have to read on my iphone, felt just that, forced. Forced reading sucks. Just ask any middle schooler. If I own the book or if I borrowed it from the library I feel a pressure to read it, but not a monetary pressure.

I'll give it the month to see if I can't live without it, but I don't think I'll keep the app so far. I'll keep updated on which publishers are going to participate and then revisit my decision again later.

An Otis Christmas and PW

An Otis Christmas by Loren Long

I am an avid reader of Publisher's Weekly. I am always excited when one of my favorite books/series is reviewed. But then I am often times disappointed when the reviewer is not a fan like I am.

The Otis series of books are fantastic. They are a huge hit, not just in my house, but with my all my little people at school. I know I've got a group of kids hooked when I read Otis and the Tornado. You could give me the rowdiest, sugared up, just had PE group of 5 and 6 year olds and I will have them riveted with that book. They love it! A tornado? Animals in danger? They are totally on board.

I've been pumping up the Scholastic Book Fair for the past few weeks and pumping up the release of the newest Otis book, An Otis Christmas, which will be released on Oct. 22. So with all this hype and love for Otis at my school I was very disappointed to see the following review in PW.

"Otis the tractor returns in a grim holiday story with odd allusions to the Nativity Story."

Ouch! That hurts. I'll have to read it my self first to decide how "grim" the story is and to interpret for myself the "odd allusions" to the Nativity Story.
I understand the pressure that series authors are under to produce a holiday story, but do we have to end up with something crappy just to sell an extra book for the holidays? I've seen it happen with other beloved characters. Just look what has happened to Pinkalicious.
I'm still holding out hope that this will be a decent story and that I will be able to proudly read it to my kids in December and have them love it just like all the other Otis books.

Oyster Invite

I got my Oyster invitation.
As soon as I heard about it I put in my request for an invitation. I even entered a contest on Book Riot to win an invitation, but the powers that be determined that I needed more books and my invitation arrived today.
Needless to say I have now fully signed up and given over my credit card information for the monthly charge.
I haven't explored too much yet but I am impressed with the selection. There are not new releases, but that is okay. Who has time to keep up with all the new releases? There is a great selection of books that are at least 2 years old. You know, the ones you wanted to read, but missed when they were new.
So far I have chosen:

Detroit by Scott Martelle
The Crimson and the Petal by Michel Faber
America's Women by Gail Collins
To Marry an English Lord by Gail Maccoll
Serena by Ron Rash

As if my to-be-read pile isn't large enough, now my virtual pile is big too.

Currently I'm reading Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky.
Next is Five Days at Memorial by Sheri Fink
And if I like it Carter Beats the Devil by Glen David Gold, a recommendation from Wil Wheaton's FB posts.

My new favorite library related quote:

You can't read all day... if you don't start in the morning.

Sister Carrie

In my attempt to read almost all of the classic books ever written, I have now finished Sister Carrie.
It's the story of Carrie a girl from a small town who moves to the big city of Chicago to try and start her life. She lives with her sister for a while before finding a handsome and affluent young man to take care of her. That man leads to another man, who takes her to New York where she gets work as an actress. There are ups and downs, scandals and poverty.
It was a little slow to start and I had to force myself to keep going. (I've had that problem a lot lately with books in general) After about 50% it started to pick up and I was interested in Carrie and what happened to her. It was a good read. It kind of had a Madame Bovary feel to it since it involved a woman and her scandal and issues with money. I can't say I"m a big fan of Drieser's writing. It wasn't enough. Enough of what I couldn't tell you, but I felt it lacked something for me. I think I needed more insights into Carrie's feelings internally instead of externally and I didnt' like the men in her life. There didn't seem to be much romance involved. He's no Jane Austen.

The next classic novel I'm attempting will be Silas Marner by George Eliot. I saw this on a list over at BookRiot showing the differences in books read by highschoolers. This used to be an important book in highschool English classes at the turn of the century. I figure I will suffer thru it as a 21st century adult.

I Wrote Something

I did. I really did!

It's a cute little children's story and it's perfect. I've read it out loud to test it for story time worthiness and it's good. My kids at school would like it. It's got love and hate and booger and fart jokes.
Now I just need to send it to some adults to read for a final evaluation.
If you are an adult and I know you and you like books, have several children, you write and or read a lot, you might just be in my group of first reviewers.
I'm excited.
I'm proud of my story.
I want to share it and I might need a little help.
I'm researching publishers right now to see who I want to send it to. Scholastic for sure because they are my peeps, but I need a few more to round out the options.
After doing some research I've learned that one-off children's stories are not agent worthy and that the best bet is to send it into publisher slush piles and hope for the best. I'm going to do that and keep my fingers crossed that somebody picks it up and reads it and likes it and sees the potential.
It's a step in the right direction.
This is what I'm supposed to be using my extra two days off a week for: writing and moving forward with what I want out of life.
I want to tell great stories. I want to make kids laugh and let them know that stories can make you feel better.

The Fountainhead

I finished it!
It took a whole month, but I finished it.
It was horrible. I didn't like it at all and I think it was stressing me out.
I liked Atlas Shrugged. The story was there and I believed it and I liked it.

Here I just didn't get it. I didn't understand why Roark and Dominique couldn't just be together. Why did they have to make it so difficult for themselves and everyone else? They both had to be ruined in order for them to be together? Whatever with that.

I get the selfishness thing. I understood Ayn Rand's point on that. It was the same thing in Atlas Shrugged, but here I felt like I was being beat over the head with it with long monologues and repetition. I also got the message about how the media manipulates information. What I learned is that this in not unique to my lifetime or with the Internet. Apparently it's been around for a while. That was the one redeeming idea I got from the book.

As it says on the book cover, "It's a novel of ideas". Yes, it is, but it's not a novel with a good story.

I always thought I had to read this book because I was an architect and it was important to my understanding of the profession. It's not. Being an architect really didn't add anything to my understanding of either this book or the architecture profession.

Am I glad I read it? Yes. It's one of those classic books I feel that I need to have knowledge of. Will I recommend it to others? Probably not unless, like me, they are just trying to add notches to their bed posts.