Recent Reads {The False House}

I am behind on all kinds of blogging, message board, and email-related things, and my Bookcase is no exception.  I finished this book weeks ago!

The False House by James Stoddard is the sequel to The High House, which has become one of my favorite books.  In this one, the house is under great threat by a new plot of the Anarchists.  A young girl is kidnapped and held captive, and the anarchists are using her to change the house.  As in the first book, there are fairy tale and allegorical elements to the story, and lots of fantastic adventure as Lord Anderson and his brother search for the missing girl and for the key to unravelling the plot against the house.  And it appears there are traitors in their midst!

I'm so glad I found these books, and purchased them - they are on my list of books to read over and over again.  Perhaps they will become read-alouds as well.  I will certainly encourage my kids to read them!

Recent Reads {The High House - second time!}

I just read this book again.  I love it.  I recently purchased my own copy, along with a copy of the sequel, The False House.  It had been only a couple of months since I read The High House, but since I was about to read the continuation of the story and because I loved the book so much, I decided to read it again so it was fresh in my mind.  I enjoyed it just as much the second time through, and was more attuned to some of the allegorical elements. 

This time I read the entire book in one day - that day being the travel day as we came home from our Honduras mission trip.  This small book fit easily into my purse and I was able to read it as we traveled from San Pedro Sula to Miami, during our long (otherwise boring) layover in Miami, and then from Miami to Baltimore.  And I still had time to visit, nap, browse a magazine or two, and do a couple of Sudoku puzzles.  That's more a commentary on how LONG the travel day was, not on how fast I read.   

My first "review" of this book can be read here.

Recent Reads {A Daughter's Inheritance}

A Daughter's Inheritance, by Tracie Peterson and Judith Miller, is the first in a series titled "The Broadmoor Legacy."  I did have a slow start to this book, reading a few pages once every few days to begin with.  But yesterday I had some time in the evening to devote to reading and found that I was interested enough that I finished it last night.  I've read a number of books by Peterson and Miller, and historical fiction is a favorite genre of mine, so this book was sure to appeal to me.  The setting is the Thousand Islands area of the St Lawrence River, during the early 1900s.  Fanny Broadmoor and her two cousins have a very close relationship, but the rest of the Broadmoor family spend most of their time together arguing and complaining.  There are some surprises in store for all of them in the patriarch's will, and Fanny becomes the victim of her greedy uncle's scheme to get control of her share of the inheritance.  Of course there is a love story! Fanny loves a young man that her uncle doesn't consider suitable, and although the very nature of this type of novel dictates that they will eventually be together, there are many obstacles in their way.  I found a lot to like about this story and some of its characters, and plenty to dislike about the villain of the piece; and although the main plot is fairly predictable, some of the plot twists were not.  Although the end of the book does indicate that Fanny and her young man will eventually wind up together, it doesn't happen in this installment - if I want to find out how all the details work out, I will need to read the second installment in the series.  I will be watching for it to become available, as I'm interested enough to read some more.

Recent Reads {Pendragon}

 

 

Pendragon by Stephen Lawhead.  - I actually finished reading this at least a month ago, but forgot to write about it!  This is the fourth book in the Pendragon Cycle, but it isn't a continuation of the story.  Rather, it is a retelling of the events in the books Merlin and Arthur, but completely from Merlin's viewpoint.  There are details and events that aren't included in these previous installments in the cycle, and yet in many ways, it feels like reading a different story entirely.  At some points I felt unsure that the timeline of Pendragon really did match up with the events already narrated, but I didn't bother to get out my copy of Arthur to check.  (And I have been known to do that very thing - for instance, when I read Mary Reilly I consulted a copy of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde several times to see that the two stories matched.)  Having read both Book Three and now Book Four of the Pendragon Cycle, I have twice reached the point in the Arthurian story where Arthur's injury appears to be fatal and he is taken to Avallon in hopes of his recovery there.  Familiarity with the legends tells me that Arthur must regain his health and return to rule in the Kingdom of Summer, and so I'm anxious to find out how Lawhead will tell that rest of the story.  In order to find out, I will have to find a copy of the fifth and final book in the cycle, Grail.

Recent Reads {Kabul Beauty School}

Kabul Beauty School: An American Woman Goes Behind the Veil by Deborah Rodriguez.  This is another book that first caught my eye quite awhile ago, but I didn't start reading till last week.  Once I got started, I was really pulled into the story, although I have to say that the timeline of events was a bit confusing to me at times.  Deborah Rodriguez is a hairdresser from Michigan that volunteered to go to Afghanistan with a humantarian aid group shortly after the fall of the Taliban in 2001.  She relates how she felt rather useless during the first part of her stay because she had such limited skills in things that seemed practical - nursing, therapy, etc.  But she discovered that she made friends with the Afghani people easily, and found that her hairdressing skills were indeed very useful!  She wound up teaching a beauty school for Afghani women, training them so that they could open up their own salons and help support their families.   This book is a journal and memoir of her experiences and friendships.

 

When I started reading, I (in my relative ignorance) wondered how much demand there might be for hairdressing and cosmetology in a culture where - I thought - the women were almost always under a veil.  Boy, was I wrong about that!  Apparently, beauty salons are in great demand and are very successful businesses for these women.  I learned a lot about daily life in this war-torn nation and its people just by reading this simple memoir.

Recent Reads {How Starbucks Saved My Life}

 

I first heard about this book on a radio program back in September, and was intrigued by the radio interview with the author.  It went on my "maybe I'll read that someday" list almost immediately, but it wasn't until this month that I got to read it.  Our MOMS Club book club picked this as our June read.  One of the moms confessed to me that she had very low expectations when we chose this book, because she thought that a memoir about a coffee shop would probably be very boring.  But she said she really enjoyed the book.  Today is our book club discussion, so I'll get to find out what others thought of it as well.  I enjoyed it - a very easy read, it is written simply, with no real surprises.  Each chapter opens with a quote that has been printed on Starbucks cups.  Michael Gates Gill was very successful in the advertising industry, came from a priveleged family and was part of high society.  But his firing, and a subsequent affair which led to his divorce, changed his lifestyle dramatically.  He also was diagnosed with a brain tumour at about the same time.  His book tells how this downward spiral led to his accepting a job at a Starbucks store and how his perceptions of the world were challenged and changed through his experiences.  He found that he enjoyed his much simpler lifestyle, and genuinely enjoyed his work and the people he encountered at Starbucks.

 

Gill tells his story in a very self-effacing memoir style.  His telling of the story is often punctuated with lengthy "flashbacks" to his earlier years as he makes comparison of then to now.  He says he is far happier in this service job and living simply than he was in his former lifestyle, and talks about how his eyes were opened to his own prejudices.  Obviously Starbucks is presented in a completely positive light - and as such a wonderful place to work, and I doubt they will have trouble finding employees as long as this book is being read and talked about!  If I wanted a part-time job, I think I'd head straight to Starbucks and see if it was as positive and wonderful as portrayed in the book!

 

The end notes in the book indicated that a movie may come out based on the book, with Tom Hanks playing the part of Gill.  I can only picture a movie kind of like "Forrest Gump" except not as humourous.  Hmmm.... I don't know how interesting a movie it would be.  But the book was a light, feel-good summer read. 

Recent Reads {Girl with a Pearl Earring}

This book was my book club's pick for May.  I've been interested in reading it for a long time, so putting it on the book club list was probably a good idea.  Last year our book club read another Tracy Chevalier novel, The Lady and the Unicorn, which I really enjoyed.  Girl with a Pearl Earring was interesting in that the whole story is narrated by the "girl" named Griet.  Her family falls on hard times and she goes into service as a housemaid for the Vermeer family.  Her eye for color and ability to clean the artist's studio without disturbing anything gain her some notice with him, but other family members dislike her. 

 

One of the reasons that I really enjoy historical fiction is my interest in the fact that everyone in history has been an individual "real" person, and although we know much of the statistics and facts about the famous people, often little is known of their personality.  And less is known about the more ordinary folks in days gone by - the foot soldiers, the servants, the peasants, and others.  Although Chevalier's story is fictional, it puts a face and personality on the poorer citizens of that time, those who served and worked largely anonymously.  The difficult positions Griet was placed in by being merely a servant are hard for us to imagine.  Chevalier presents her as a well-rounded character, with virtues and faults, and imagines a compelling story behind this famous, yet mysterious painting of Vermeer's.  Not a great deal is known about Johannes Vermeer himself, and Chevalier chooses, for the most part, to allow his personality to remain a mystery in her novel.

 

Something else interesting - since the movie based on this book has recently come out on DVD, our club decided that our "MOMS Night Out" activity for this month would be to get together and watch the movie.  So we are doing that tonight.  I am really looking forward to it - and I sure hope that I won't be disappointed, as I often have been when I've read a delightful book and then watched the movie.