Anna Karenina

Title: Anna Karenina

Author: Leo Tolstoy

Pages: 968

Genre: Fiction, Classic, Russian Classic

Grade: A+

Synopsis: Anna is a modern Russian woman married to Karenin, but unsatisfied in her marriage.  She has an affair with Count Vronsky and things begin to unravel.

My Review: I found this book to be absolutely fantastic. I especially enjoyed reading the book alongside with a summary and analysis that allowed me to better understand the intentions and symbolism behind the story. It's hard to believe that this book was first published way back in the 1870's as many of Tolstoy's astute observations regarding religion and politics still rang true today.

Where the Red Fern Grows

Title: Where the Red Fern Grows

Author: Wilson Rawls

Pages: 272

Genre: Fiction

Grade: A-

Synopsis: Billy worked and saved for two years for enough money to buy Little Ann and Big Dan. They were the best hunting dogs and companions that a boy could wish for. Night after night Billy and his dogs would go out hunting for raccoons and adventure.

My Review: We listened to this book on a road trip from Pittsburgh, to Buffalo, to Toronto, to Detroit, to Cleveland and back to Pittsburgh.  Kate had read it with her class last year and was excited to listen to the book again.  We all looked forward to when we would be driving and listening.  A great family read/listen!

Becoming

Title: Becoming

Author: Michelle Obama

Pages: 426

Genre: Autobiography

Grade: A+

Synopsis: This book was written (and in the case of the excellent audiobook read by) Michelle Obama. She describes her life as a young girl on the south side of Chicago, their early years of marriage and then she sheds her unique insight on the presidency of Barack Obama.

My Review: This book was incredible. I found it to be inspiring and I think that it would be even more so if  you are a woman, African-American or any other class that is commonly overlooked or disrespected. I put this up against the best biographies, memoirs and autobiographies that I have read. The United States has had many strong First Ladies, but only two were attorneys and Michelle certainly ranks up there as one of the most well-educated. As you read this book, you can't help but compare Obama's presidency against Trump's and for most Americans I believe at least a small part wishes that we could return to the era where the biggest controversy was that the President wore a tan suit. The second comparison is between Michelle Obama and the current First Lady, Melania Trump and the successes of their pet projects (mainly healthy school lunches for Obama and anti-bullying for Trump (who is unfortunately married to the bully-in-charge)). Excuse me for digressing and suffice it to say that I loved this book.

Hitty, Her First Hundred Years

Title: Hitty, Her First Hundred Years

Author: Rachel Field

Pages: 256

Genre: Historical Fiction, Newbery Award

Grade: B+

Synopsis: Hitty is a doll made out of the best mountain ash wood in Maine in the early 1800s. You wouldn't think a doll would have so many interesting experiences to tell about, but Hitty sure does.  From being deserted on tropical islands, to the slums of India, to the steamboats of the Mississippi and back to Maine, Hitty describes all sorts of adventures.

My Review: I didn't really have high hopes for this book, but I've got to be honest that I was pleasantly surprised. The book was simply written, but fairly enjoyable.

A Man Called Ove

Title: A Man Called Ove

Author: Fredrik Backman

Pages: 337

Genre: Fiction

Grade: A-

Synopsis: Ove, is a grumpy old man who simply wants to die in peace.  However, when a young family moves in next door and treat Ove as a grandfather figure and friend, his curmudgeonliness (maybe that's not a word...) begins to crumble and his story begins to come out.

My Review: Although I really enjoyed this book it took me a long time to read it.  It wasn't a "couldn't put it down" book, but more of an enjoyable story sort of book.

Play Money

Title: Play Money: Or, How I Quit My Day Job and Made Millions Trading Virtual Loot

Author: Julian Dibbell

Pages: 336

Genre: Non-Fiction

Grade: B

Synopsis: I think that this book has been on my to-read list since it was published in 2006. I finally got around to reading it and it was interesting to read this book in the context of 2019 as opposed to when it was written.  The book was about the digital economies of online role-playing games such as World of Warcraft, Everquest, Eve Online, Second Life, etc.  Similar to apps like Candy Crush or Farmville, a lot of the value in these games comes from simply spending time in the game and people are willing to pay for the items that are or can be produced by those who have spent enough time in the game to have obtained the expertise necessary to create rare items in the digital marketplaces.  This book gives background about these games and economies and outlines the author's attempt to create an income stream from the trading of these items that would be enough to live off of.

My Review: For the record, I've never actually played any of these games (or similar games), so I wasn't 100% familiar with what the book was about.  That said, I still found this relatively interesting, but this was a book that would have been far more intriguing during the heyday of these MMORPGs (massive multi-player online role-playing games).

Fire in the Bones

Title: Fire in the Bones: William Tyndale - Martyr, Father of the English Bible

Author: S. Michael Wilcox

Pages: 255

Genre: Religion

Grade: B

Synopsis: William Tyndale was a genius translator and familiar with numerous languages including Hebrew, Greek & Latin. During his life in the early 1500s, the printing press was a new invention and most people were illiterate.  The bible only existed in Latin, Hebrew and Greek and the Catholic church fought hard against reformers such as Martin Luther and others who were trying to translate the bible into the more common tongues of English, German, French, etc. Many of these condemned heretics were burned at the stake and hunted throughout both England and the European continent. Wilcox makes the comparison between Joseph Smith and William Tyndale and how both were guided by the Lord in their translation work.

My Review: I enjoyed the story, but it was loaded with speculation and conjecture and in my opinion was stretched out longer than necessary.  This book would have made the perfect novella or magazine article series, but was more of a stretch in book length.

The Atomic City Girls

Title: The Atomic City Girls

Author: Janet Beard

Pages: 353

Genre: Historical Fiction

Grade: B+

Synopsis: The Manhattan Project started towards the tail end of World War II and ended up employing a secret city's worth of scientists, physicists and young women, because most of the other young men were off fighting in Europe or the Pacific. This story mainly takes place in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, which was a city that was built from scratch specifically for the research behind the atomic bomb and for the isolation and enrichment of Uranium. The book follows a few different characters and most of their stories are from real-life accounts of the people who lived and worked in Oak Ridge.

My Review: I started this book believing that it was a non-fiction account, but after about a chapter I realized that it was more of a historical fiction than non-fiction.  After my initial disappointment I carried on and found that I enjoyed the book, even if it bounces around throughout the first 80% before finally linking the characters together towards the end of the book.

Beloved

Title: Beloved

Author: Toni Morrison

Pages: 324

Genre: Fiction, Classic

Grade: B

Synopsis: Sethe was a pregnant slave with 3 kids who escaped to Ohio. While on the run she gave birth to another baby and made it to her husband's mother's home in Cincinnati. The story talks about the demons of slavery, Sethe's demons that she is always fighting and her relationship with the ghost of her daughter who was killed soon after she arrived in Ohio.

My Review: I actually listened to the audiobook, which was read by the author herself. I really struggled through the first part of the book, I enjoyed the middle part and I started to quite like the book by the end. The writing style of the book makes it difficult to always know what is really happening and what is just flowery prose. Once I started reading the book alongside a detailed summary everything started to make more sense and I enjoyed the book more.

Garden of Lies

Title: Garden of Lies

Author: Amanda Quick

Pages: 359

Genre: Romance

Grade: B

Synopsis: Anne Clifton committed suicide while working as a secretary under contract for the Kern Secretarial Agency.  The owner of the agency, Ursula Kern, does not believe that Clifton would actually commit suicide and believes that Anne Clifton had actually left a coded message for Ursula before her death.  As Ursula starts to dig deeper and deeper into Clifton's past the startling truth begins to become clear.

My Review: This was a unique plot and storyline, but it was not a book that I loved.  It was, however, fairly easy to follow and did not leave a bunch of loose ends at the completion of the book.

The Boys in the Boat

Title: The Boys in the Boat

Author: Daniel James Brown

Pages: 12 discs

Genre: Non-Fiction, History

Grade: A+

Synopsis: The 1936 eight-oar rowing crew from the University of Washington defied the odds and won National Championships as freshman, junior-varsity and varsity.  They went on to represent the United States at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, where although forced to row against the odds in the worst lanes were able to pull off a stunning upset and win the gold medal.

My Review: If you liked Seabiscuit or Unbroken, then this book is for you.  Similar to those books (especially Seabiscuit), the author takes a sporting event that most of us know very little about and turns it into the most fascinating chronicle of the rowing world in the early to mid-1930s.  Very well written and very well researched, I can't wait to watch the rowing races in the next Olympics!

Where the Mountain Meets the Moon

Title: Where the Mountain Meets the Moon

Author: Grace Lin

Pages: 282

Genre: Children's Fiction, Fantasy

Grade: B+

Synopsis: Minli is a young girl living with her parents in the shadows of Fruitless Mountain.  All day long she toils in the fields and at night she listens to the stories that her father tells of dragons, pearls, destiny and the Old Man of the Moon. Eventually Minli determines that the only way that her families fortune can improve is if she asks the Old Man of the Moon herself. She sneaks away from her family's small house on a journey to improve their fortune.

My Review: I was surprised, but I ended up really enjoying this book.  Minli's story is interspersed with all sorts of old Chinese fables and eventually everything ties together nicely at the end.

No Applause ~ Just Throw Money

Title: No Applause ~ Just Throw Money

Author: Trav S.D.

Pages: 328

Genre: History, Non-Fiction

Grade: B

Synopsis: This book is a biography of vaudeville in the United States. For a period of about 30 years, vaudeville was the main source of entertainment here in the USA.  It's legacy lives on at halftime shows during major sporting events, America's Got Talent, traveling circuses and loads of shows in Vegas.

My Review: The book was definitely well-researched and well-written, I'm just not sure why I picked it up.  For people who love reading about how the old-time stars got their starts (i.e. the Marx Brothers, Charlie Chaplain, Harry Houdini, Mae West, etc.), then you'll probably enjoy this book more than I did.

The Well-Educated Mind

Title: The Well-Educated Mind

Author: Susan Wise Bauer

Pages: 480

Genre: Non-Fiction

Grade: B

Synopsis: The subtitle for this book is "A Guide to the Classical Education You Never Had." I thought it would be a primer on a bunch of different subjects, but instead, it is just a glorified reading list of novels, autobiographies, histories, dramas, poetry and science texts. Bauer gives strategies for making it through difficult subjects and advocates for time spent reading each day, keeping a reading journal, asking questions and reading books at the same time as a friend in order to stimulate discussion.

My Review: I do love reading lists.  I've got a good number of them and I rarely read books that are not on one list or another. However, I'm posting this review after only reading about 90 pages of the book as the remainder of the book is dedicated to the reading list along with little tidbits about the books suggested. While I can see the benefit of the strategies suggested for deep learning while reading, I also am of the mindset that life is short and that I'm not going to spend too much time re-reading and studying these texts.  Instead, I'll just read them for enjoyment with sparknotes open to help provide clarity to the difficult passages.  Next up (from Bauer's list): Don Quixote.

Brave Companions

Title: Brave Companions: Portraits in History

Author: David McCullough

Pages: 240

Genre: Non-Fiction, History

Grade: A

Synopsis: Each chapter of this book focuses on an exceptional man of woman who has helped to shape the course of history. The book is composed of short essays about Alexander von Humboldt, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Frederic Remington, Louis Agassiz, Charles & Anne Lindbergh and others. Each of these persons profiled has done something exceptional.

My Review: If you've ever looked at McCullough's 7-800 page books and thought that they looked too overwhelming, then this is the book for you.  It gives you a taste of the storytelling abilities of David McCullough and you may find yourself wanting to read one of his longer books to learn more.  It seems like these essays are a sort of preview to the longer books about some of these same individuals that McCullough has written since this book was published.

On a side note, this book brings McCullough's reviewed books on this blog to 8, which breaks a tie with Brandon Mull and John Grisham (and with J. K. Rowling and Dan Brown right behind).

In the Garden of Beasts

Title: In the Garden of Beasts

Author: Erik Larson

Pages: 448

Genre: History, Non-Fiction

Grade: B+

Synopsis: William E. Dodd is an academic from Chicago when he is named as America's first ambassador to Hitler's Germany.  He arrives in Germany in 1933 and is immediately surprised by the opulent expectations of him.  He is determined to only live off of his annual salary, but most ambassadors (and even others in the State Department) come from families with deep pockets and are used to having chauffeurs, servants, cooks, etc.  While Dodd doesn't immediately recognize the threat of the Nazis, once he does he tries to convey the risks and threats back home to America. Most of his warnings are ignored as the US public is mostly interested in a policy of isolationism. As is often the case in Larson's books, there is a second story-line, that of Ambassador Dodd's daughter Martha, who sleeps her way around Berlin with other dignitaries, communists and even some from Hitler's staff.

My Review: This is a book about Hitler's Germany, but focuses more on his rise in the 1930's, which is a time period that I'm not too familiar with.  It was interesting to read about how the German people were slowly acclimated to Hitler's crazy policies and ideas.  He would move things two step forward, apologize and step back, then take another two steps forward, with a few large leaps thrown in.  A good lesson on warnings flags to watch out for.

The Orphan Keeper

Title: The Orphan Keeper

Author: Camron Wright

Pages: 9 discs

Genre: Fiction (A novel based on a true story)

Grade: A-

Synopsis: Chellamuthu is around seven years old when he is abducted from his city in India.  He is sold to an orphanage a few hours away and is put up for adoption while his family desperately searches for any information or clues of his whereabouts. Eventually his is adopted by a couple in Mapleton, Utah, where he learns English, has his name changed to Taj, goes to church, graduates from High School and eventually starts a family.

My Review: I give the book an A+ for the story and a B+ for the writing. That the book is based on a true story makes things all the more incredible.  The coincidences and way that things eventually worked out for Taj/Chellamuthu was amazing and inspiring.

Ten Days that Shook the World

Title: Ten Days that Shook the World

Author: John Reed

Pages: 351

Genre: Non-Fiction, History

Grade: B

Synopsis: John Reed was an American journalist living in Saint Petersburg (Petrograd) during the height of the Russian Revolution in 1917 when Lenin and the Bolsheviks seized power and setup their own government.  The writing is not flashy or embellished as his intent was to simply convey the timeline and a description of what was happening during the height of the revolution. Incredibly, almost everything that Reed reported on in this book was based on his own account.  He was able to sit in on the meetings, congresses in addition to visiting the front of the battle and meeting with people involved on both sides. Side note: John Reed died in 1920 of typhus and is one of only 3 Americans buried in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis.

My Review: To be perfectly honest, I'm pretty proud of myself for making it through this book.  I don't think that I've read a book of this substance since college. If there is a university class on the Russian Revolution, this would be the textbook. Even though a substantial chunk of the book was well over my head, I found that I enjoyed it the more I got into it. It was more difficult to read this book in small chunks and I had to be sure to only read in places of  silence and without distractions. Normally I have no problem reading with music on in the background, but this one was too meaty.

Dragonfly in Amber (Outlander #2)

Title: Dragonfly in Amber

Author: Diana Gabaldon

Pages: 33 discs

Genre: Fiction

Grade: B-

Synopsis: Claire Randall has been back in the twentieth century for about 20 years and now it is time for her to tell her story to her grown daughter and to visit the Scottish Highlands where she had spent a few years back in the 1700s. The book expounds on Claire and Jamie's time in Paris as well as on the battles between the British and Scottish fighters.

My Review: For a book that is around 750 pages (or 33 cds in my case), it seemed like there was not a lot of substance and that not a lot happened in this book.  For the parts of the book where things did happen, it simply wasn't as interesting as the first book.  It looks like there are a total of 13 books in the series, but I think I'm gonna pass on the rest.

Flora & Ulysses

Title: Flora & Ulysses

Author: Kate DiCamillo

Pages: 233

Genre: Fiction, Newbery Award

Grade: B+

Synopsis: While reading a comic book, Flora Belle Buckman sees her neeighbor vacuum up a squirrel.  Flora gives the squirrel CPR and the squirrel comes back to life with superhero like powers. Flora takes the squirrel home where they become the best buddies.

My Review: This was another book that we listened to on a road trip this last summer.  My kids just loved it, I thought it was a little kooky, but still enjoyable. Well worth a listen if you've got kids around to join in.

The Crossover

Title: The Crossover

Author: Kwame Alexander

Pages: 240

Genre: Poetry, Young Adult, Newbery Award

Grade: A

Synopsis: 12-year-old Josh Bell and his twin brother Jordan have mad skills in basketball that they got from their father who had played professionally when he was younger.  The story is mostly told in a poetic verse and a series of poems describing Josh and Jordan's playing on the court, about their crushes and about some of the struggles that they are facing at home.

My Review: We listened to this book on a road trip this last summer and it was a hit in the car. The book is in a similar style to the musical Hamilton, where the story is told almost through a rap-like verse.  Extremely clever and well done.

Hello, Universe

Title: Hello, Universe

Author: Erin Entrada Kelly

Pages: 320

Genre: Children's Fiction, Newbery Award

Grade: A

Synopsis: Chet Bullens is a bully who's prank leads to the shy boy Virgil Salinas being trapped at the bottom of a dry well with his pet guinea pig Gulliver. Virgil's friends Valencia Somerset, who is deaf, Kaori Tanaka, who is a self-proclaimed psychic, and Kaori's little sister Gen embark on a quest to try and find out what happened to Virgil when he missed his appointment with the self-proclaimed psychic.

My Review: We listened to this audiobook on one of our road trips last summer and the girls just loved it.  Every once in a while they still reference this book in random moments, which is probably one of the best recommendations that can be made.

The Last Days of the Incas

Title: The Last Days of the Incas

Author: Kim MacQuarrie

Pages: 546

Genre: History

Grade: B+

Synopsis: This is the story of how the Incas were conquered by the 54-year-old Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro and his band of 167 men.  When the Spaniards landed on the coast of Peru, the Incas had just finished fighting a bloody civil war that pitted two of the Incan sons of the previous emperor against each other and their respective armies.  After taking control of the Incan empire and setting up shop, the original conquistadors were all richer than they had dared dream, which inspired numerous other low-class individuals from Spain and the old world to try and make a name for themselves in the new world.

My Review: My goal was to finish this book before we made our trip to Machu Picchu last summer, but I was only about halfway done at the time.  However, there is something inspiring about reading a book about the Incan empire while riding the train to Aguas Calientes, which is the Peruvian town that sits just below the mountaintops where Machu Picchu sits. This isn't just a rough overview of the downfall of the Incas, it is an in depth look at the timeline and locations where the large Inca empire remained throughout their fighting with the Spanish.