Born on a Blue Day by Daniel Tammet

Daniel Tammet is the man who can recite pi to more than 25,000 places.  You may have heard of him on the news or in your science or math classes.  He is an autistic savant who also has Aspergers syndrome.  Since this book is written by him, it is a picture of how his mind works and his life day to day.

At the Book Club meeting, we shared bangers and mash with salad, plenty of wine and oatmeal chocolate chip cookies and bundtlings (mini bundt cakes) for dessert.

It was another intellectual evening with the ladies as we discussed the rise of autism numbers and the suspected causes.  We wondered whether we are on the cusp of changing to a race of humans that are less emotional and use more of our temporal lobes or if we are poisoning ourselves and our children with our highly processed diet of dyes and preservatives.  We discussed if it is a global change or if as time goes on our race with split into two: one highly developed, highly educated, less connected to family and one another and one less developed, less educated but highly connected through relationships and family.  We have no answers obviously but it was a rousing discussion.

We also talked about mothers and their role in children's lives how women are perceived now versus in the 50's or the 80's.  We discussed the unspoken competition between mothers and whether or not that can ever be overcome.  I always love the discussions at Book Club, whether they directly pertain to the book or not.

ROOM by Emma Donahue

"In many ways, Jack is a typical 5-year-old. He likes to read books, watch TV, and play games with his Ma. But Jack is different in a big way--he has lived his entire life in a single room, sharing the tiny space with only his mother and an unnerving nighttime visitor known as Old Nick. For Jack, Room is the only world he knows, but for Ma, it is a prison in which she has tried to craft a normal life for her son. When their insular world suddenly expands beyond the confines of their four walls, the consequences are piercing and extraordinary. Despite its profoundly disturbing premise, Emma Donoghue's Room is rife with moments of hope and beauty, and the dogged determination to live, even in the most desolate circumstances. A stunning and original novel of survival in captivity, readers who enter Room will leave staggered, as though, like Jack, they are seeing the world for the very first time. --Lynette Mong"


This book was incredible!  One of those that hooks you in and, unless you can read it from cover to cover in one sitting, it haunts you every time you step away.  Honestly, this book will haunt you anyway.  I was amazed that the author could tell such a chilling story all from the perspective of five year old Jack.  It is from our adult life experience that we can fill in the gaps that round out this nightmare.  The story, however chilling and sad, is truly about survival and true motherhood.  Jack's mother is the definition of Mother..... tough, inventive, creative, patient, protective, sacrificial, human....  this novel is definitley worth the read.

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford

This was one of the Book Club meetings that was more about the food than the book.  We had spicy asian soup, miso soup, steamed and fried rice, salad, bbq steak and mochi.  We agreed that the book was good but it could have been great.  The end of the book had an interview with the author and he stated that he wanted to write a love story not a deeply historical novel.  He accomplished that but even the love story was wrapped up a little to neatly.  I personally prefer more realistic endings and I admire authors who have the chutzpah to write them.

The book follows a Chinese boy who befriends a Japanese girl during World War II.  She and her family are taken away to an internment camp after the attack on Pearl Harbor.  I found the locations of the internment camps personally interesting because my parents lived in Puyallup, WA for a while.  I have been to those fairgrounds with my kids, blindly unaware that those same grounds were used at that time to hold Japanese American families during the war.  It was an sad and interesting time in our history and it wasn't all that long ago.

Half Broke Horses by Jeannette Walls

"Those old cows knew trouble was coming before we did." So begins the story of Lily Casey Smith, Jeannette Walls's no nonsense, resourceful, and spectacularly compelling grandmother. By age six, Lily was helping her father break horses. At fifteen, she left home to teach in a frontier town -- riding five hundred miles on her pony, alone, to get to her job. She learned to drive a car ("I loved cars even more than I loved horses. They didn't need to be fed if they weren't working, and they didn't leave big piles of manure all over the place") and fly a plane. And, with her husband Jim, she ran a vast ranch in Arizona. She raised two children, one of whom is Jeannette's memorable mother, Rosemary Smith Walls, unforgettably portrayed in The Glass Castle.

Lily survived tornadoes, droughts, floods, the Great Depression, and the most heartbreaking personal tragedy. She bristled at prejudice of all kinds -- against women, Native Americans, and anyone else who didn't fit the mold. Rosemary Smith Walls always told Jeannette that she was like her grandmother, and in this true-life novel, Jeannette Walls channels that kindred spirit. Half Broke Horses is Laura Ingalls Wilder for adults, as riveting and dramatic as Isak Dinesen's Out of Africa or Beryl Markham's West with the Night. Destined to become a classic, it will transfix audiences everywhere."


I loved this book!  Lily is just a kick in the pants!  I am so glad she wasn't my mother but I loved reading about her.  She was tough and smart and tenacious.  I highly recommend this book and its predecessor, The Glass Castle.

Freedom by Jonathan Franzen

The story in this novel is monotonous and seems labored, it is another story of suburban angst and emptiness.  The author writes from the perspective of different characters but every voice sounds the same.  So, surprisingly the discussion the night of Book Club was lively and intense.  We focused on the character of Walter who some said was a laughable buffoon while others argued that he was the character through which the author lectured his own political beliefs.  The thing with Walter though was his statistics on world population.  The rest of the night was spent contemplating his numbers and scenarios.

I stated that if his numbers are correct and the world population is going to continue to grow exponentially then we will run out of water and here's why.  If the amount of water on planet earth is set, all of the water that is here is the amount of water that has ever been here or will ever be here.  And, if each person is made up of 80% or more of water, not counting the amount needed to sustain life, then the sheer number of walking water vessels on the planet will use up the supply.  The argument in the book is to create a "no growth" movement.  (Hmmmm, didn't Jacques Cousteau have that idea at one point...) but we argued that it is the most educated and affluent members of society who would choose not to have children.  Then, one of us said that it didn't matter because science would take care of the gap in food and water.  Another stated that the earth can only sustain so many lives and there would be a massive die-off either of starvation or pandemic.  We went on to discuss our role in caring for the world (both the planet and the people on it).  As I said it was a lively and intense conversation.  So, mediocre book, great conversation.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver

This book has been an astounding shock to my way of life in very good ways.  While I don't necessarily buy all of the global warming propaganda, I can appreciate the need to buy local for many reasons.  Peppered with interesting statistics about our food industry, I found the most interesting to be the statement that our children's generation is the first to have a shorter life expectancy than the previous generation.  What!?!  I consider myself to be somewhat knowledgable about healthy food choices but in reading this book I realized how much I don't know. Now, I have been on the hormone/antibiotic/pesticide free bandwagon for awhile but what I had never considered was the ridiculous amount of money and petroleum spent to make every fruit or vegetable available to me year round.  Believe it or not eating what's in season has never been something I paid much attention to.  But it makes sense, if I buy local and what is in season then I am eliminating not only the waste of gas (and lining the pockets of the big oil companies) but probably buying and eating what my body and my kids bodies need during that time of year.  What a concept!  The biggest life changing information for me though was the thought that I would be helping big oil to continually line their pockets with my money when I buy stuff shipped here from all over the world.  So, I have decided that the best way I can make a difference is to buy at the very least Made in the USA, better California Grown and best from the farmers at my local market. Very interesting read.  I don't think I can do what she does and farm all of my needs from veggies and fruits to eggs and poultry but I will try to make my choices count towards the kind of world I want my children and grandchildren to grow up in.

Shiver and Linger by Maggie Stiefvater

Continuing my foray into the realm of teen supernatural romance are Shiver and Linger by Maggie Stiefvater.  Grace and Sam find one another in Shiver.  Grace is a girl who is fascinated by the wolves in the forest behind her house until she realizes that there is one she loves and who loves her back.  Sam remembers Grace from the woods and from his time as a wolf.  During the winter, Sam becomes a wolf and runs the woods with his pack but he is drawn again and again to the woods behind Grace's house.  Sam and Grace's new found love is a race against time, winter and a possible cure for Sam's changes.
In Linger, Sam and Grace fight to stay together but Grace has a dangerous secret of her own.  We'll find out how it all turns out in Forever...coming soon.  I like the series so far, it is something I would have read and loved as a teenager.

"Vampires are sooo....two years ago!"

One of the highschool girls who frequents my library uttered this insightful phrase and so I perused  the vast realm of supernatural teen romance novels.  Apparently, it's all about fallen angels and Nephilim now.  The Nephilim are the offspring of fallen angels and humans briefly mentioned in the Old Testament.
Well, there is nothing biblical about this trilogy by Lauren Tate but it is entertaining in a dark, twisty high school kind of way. An interesting alternative to glittering vampires and overheated werewolves.

Here are the descriptions of the individual stories:

FallenThere's something achingly familiar about Daniel Grigori.

Mysterious and aloof, he captures Luce Price's attention from the moment she sees him on her first day at the Sword & Cross boarding school in sultry Savannah, Georgia. He's the one bright spot in a place where cell phones are forbidden, the other students are all screw-ups, and security cameras watch every move.
Even though Daniel wants nothing to do with Luce--and goes out of his way to make that very clear--she can't let it go. Drawn to him like a moth to a flame, she has to find out what Daniel is so desperate to keep secret . . . even if it kills her.

Dangerously exciting and darkly romantic, Fallen is a page turning thriller and the ultimate love story.TormentHell on earth.

That's what it's like for Luce to be apart from her fallen angel boyfriend, Daniel.It took them an eternity to find one another, but now he has told her he must go away. Just long enough to hunt down the Outcasts - immortals who want to kill Luce. Daniel hides Luce at Shoreline, a school on the rocky California coast with unusually gifted students: Nephilim, the offspring of fallen angels and humans.
At Shoreline, Luce learns what the Shadows are, and how she can use them as windows to her previous lives. Yet the more Luce learns, the more she suspects that Daniel hasn't told her everything. He's hiding something - something dangerous. What if Daniel's version of the past isn't actually true? What if Luce is really meant to be with someone else?

The second novel in the addictive Fallen series... where love never dies.
Passion
Luce would die for Daniel.

And she has. Over and over again. Throughout time, Luce and Daniel have found each other, only to be painfully torn apart: Luce dead, Daniel left broken and alone. But perhaps it doesn't need to be that way....

Luce is certain that something - or someone - in a past life can help her in her present one. So she begins the most important journey of this lifetime, going back eternities to witness firsthand her romances with Daniel... and to finally unlock the key to making their love last.
Cam and the legions of angels and Outcasts are desperate to catch Luce, but none are as frantic as Daniel. He chases Luce through their shared pasts, terrified of what might happen if she rewrites history.Because their romance for the ages could go up in flames . . . forever. Sweeping across centuries, PASSION is the third novel in the unforgettably epic FALLEN series.

Back to Books....again.

I cannot believe it has been almost an entire year since I have written anything here.  What a sad testament to the state of my reading affairs during the school year.  Once again, I vow to do better...to read more, write more and stay current with my beloved Book Club website.