Sunday, November 07, 2010

Book Update

It has been awhile since I posted about the books I have read, since the whole baby thing got in the way, so I thought I would comment about a few books I have read lately (as in the past 4 months).

I just finished Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortinson. It is a true story of a humanitarian building schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan over the past couple decades. I found the story inspiring but the actual book was rather slow. Still it is quite amazing to see how one person could affect some much change and that is very motivating.

Other recent books:

Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chealier was the story of two women in the 1800's in England that were fossil finders in a time when it wasn't appropriate for women to do work of that kind. She did a good job setting the time in the novel and made it believable, but I found that the book was a bit slow too. It didn't really draw me in.

The Poisoner's Handbook by Deborah Blum is a nonfiction story of the birth of forensic science in the early 1900's. The story basically goes chronologically through how there was a race for scientists to try and figure out different chemicals used to kill people and how they could prove it with killers using different chemicals once one was proven in science. It was an interesting book and rather horrific in parts (like learning about radon before they knew how deadly it was).

Loving Frank by Nancy Horan was a historical fiction type book of the story of Frank Loyd Wright and his affair with Mamah Cheney. I didn't really care for the book and it seemed like it was extremely slow. It was beautifully written at times when talking about how much they were in love and not knowing that one of the people that worked for them in their house ended up killing her and her children was tragic and I couldn't believe it. FLW was extremely arrogant and that bothered me throughout the novel too.

These were all our book club books for the past 4 months that I got in. Granted I didn't actually read any of these but rather listened to them on tape, but that is what it is now as I don't have too much time to actually sit down and read. Next up is Eat, Pray, Love.

1 comment:

BriGaal said...

These all seem boring, I need better recommendations next time ;)