Tag: books

8 books, which is not super fabulous considering that I was on vacation for at least 14 days in July. Also, much re-reading of the Lehane books took over the summer. After I finished them the first time, I couldn’t get into any other books, so I just started over with the series.
Just for fun, let’s limit my summaries this month to 1 sentence each.

Finished:

10 books! I read 10 books in June! This was due to several factors. My awake-two-hours-in-the-middle-of-the-night insomnia seems to have returned, thus giving me more hours to read, though less actual sleep and an overall grumpiness that I don’t recommend. Also my class ended June 10 or somewhere around there. That left more time for recreational reading. Thirdly, I fell in love. Have you ever started a relationship and suddenly the need for sleep diminishes? And you don’t really want to do anything except spend time with the person? And you want to know everything about that person? That happened.

I am not afraid to say that I am in love with Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro. I am not afraid to admit that before the month was over I had purchased all five books by Dennis Lehane where they appear as characters. I am not afraid to tell you that not only did I stay up late reading said books, but was happy when I awoke in the middle of the night–more time to read. I am not afraid to tell you that I finished the last book in Hungary and bided my time until I got back home at which point I opened the first book in the series and started reading again.

I’m not really a mystery fan. I’ll read them every once in awhile, but not often. For some reason this series and I were meant to be.

Finished
Niagara Falls All Over Again. Elizabeth McCracken.

The Secret. Rhonda Byrne.

Helping Me Help Myself. One skeptic, ten self-help gurus, and a year on the brink of the comfort zone. Beth Lisick

The Lost Memoirs of Jane Austin. Syrie James.

A Drink Before the War. Dennis Lehane.

Darkness Take My Hand. Dennis Lehane.

Sacred. Dennis Lehane.

Gone, Baby, Gone. Dennis Lehane.
Yes, indeed I read it in May. But I didn’t know it was book 4 of 5. So now I am re-reading it to preserve the order. Plus, it’s a very good book.

Prayers for Rain. Dennis Lehane.

Sex, Drugs & Cocoa Puffs. Chuck Klosterman.

Started but didn’t finish.
Ship of Fools. Katherine Anne Porter.
I was too lazy to even get into this novel to see if I would like it.

Budapest. Paul Murphy.
I got this book from the library so I could tell one of my friends all the sites she should go to when she visits Budapest this summer. It’s a small book, but has good overview information. The maps are a bit lacking, so I wouldn’t actually take it on a trip.

Didn’t even start.
Anything for Jane. Cheryl Mendelson.

Sacred by Dennis Lehane

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
My love affair with Kenzie and Gennaro is in full bloom. After recovering from the fallout in “Darkness Take My Hand,” Patrick and Angie are lured into a missing person’s case. Not surprisingly, the case isn’t all it seems to be when it it begins.

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Darkness, Take My Hand by Dennis Lehane

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro are back in this novel. I am fast falling in with these two characters. They take a case of a professor who is concerned her son is being stalked. While they initially find nothing, they are drawn into a serial killer’s web and chaos and confusion ensues. This was signficantly more bloody than “A Drink Before the War.”

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A Drink Before the War by Dennis Lehane

rating: 4 of 5 stars
Here is the beginning of the Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro story that I jumped into mid-stream when I read Gone, Baby, Gone. I really like both of these characters. They are good guys, but the life of a private investigator includes so many gray areas it is interesting to watch them wrestle with the moral choices. Kind of like some of Veronica Mars’ quandaries.

Kenzie and Gennaro are hired by a powerful state senator to recover some “important documents” and that document recovery touches off a gang war during a hot Boston summer. As per every Dennis Lehane novel I’ve read, I stayed up late finishing it. The social justice issues, particularly child welfare, that are so evident in other Lehane novels I’ve read, were not as prominent in this one, but that didn’t detract from the story. As someone who does not read mystery novels very often, I can say that Dennis Lehane’s books tend to be enjoyable outside of the mystery waiting to be solved.

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The Lost Memoirs of Jane Austen by Syrie James

rating: 4 of 5 stars
Being a lazy reader, I’ve only actually read one Jane Austin novel. That would be Emma and to finish it I had to make myself read one chapter per night until I was done AND I consulted Cliff Notes because I kept getting confused as to which character was which. I’ve attempted to read Pride and Prejudice several times without success. I just don’t like to work hard at reading, people.

This book was fun, because I got to read in the style of Jane Austin without working so hard. The premise is that a chest was found sealed in the wall and in it contain the lost memoirs of Jane Austin. As we read we learn of the man she met at the shore and what happened because of their meeting.

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Helping Me Help Myself: One Skeptic, Twelve Self-Help Programs, One Whirlwind Year of Improvement by Beth Lisick

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars
I think the universe was telling me something when the library system sent me both “The Secret” and this book at the same time. I’m not the skeptic that Beth Lisick is; in fact I had already read four of the self-help gurus she consulted: Steven Covey, Suze Orman, Deepak Chopra and Julia Cameron. I also have my own organization self-help guru, the Flylady. So this was familiar territory to me.

“The Secret” lives on the edge of this book. She keeps hearing about the movie, but never actually gets to see it. This is too bad, as I would have loved to hear what she thought of the whole thing.

The book was funny in parts, but reading it I could sense how indifferent she felt; about some of the self-help gurus or writing the book itself, I’m not sure which. I think that is what kept me from really liking this book, though I did enjoy it.

A fitting quote: “This seems like a linchpin of why so many people get sucked into self-help and empowerment programs. They can’t trust that what they are doing is the “right” way to be doing it.”

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The Secret by Rhonda Byrne

rating: 2 of 5 stars
Okay, I admit it, one of my deep, dark secrets is that I read a lot of self-help books. Diet books, financial books, pop psychology books, they have all been checked out on my library card. While I don’t think they hurt me any, I feel sort of schlubby admitting that I spend a good amount of leisure time learning how other people say I should live my life.

This book is one of those self-help books that I am pretty skeptical about. If everyone has the power to create whatever they want, are we saying that all those people living in poverty around the world are just some creative visioning away from Jack Canfield’s mansion? The friend of friends who just died of breast cancer had the power to make it go away? I don’t buy it–although I’m sure the author would say that this is getting in the way of my own success, worrying about the poor and sick of the world.

But I decided to walk through my day as if all the things I wanted to happen were going to happen. It was quite pleasant, actually and I may spend the off moments of my day (shower, walking to various bus and Max stops) visualizing what I want my life to look like. It can’t hurt any.

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