The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate

by Jacqueline Kelly. Some books you read and read and read and keep hoping to get to the good part, and it never comes. This is not like that.....you read (actually I'm listening to it on my walks) just because it captures your interest, and it doesn't matter where it leads! And, it makes me laugh out loud! A 12-year old girl, Texas, 1899, and delightful, so far.

A Long, Long Time Ago & Essentially True

by Brigid Pasulka. Several times I thought about putting this book down, because of frequent crudeness, but I persisted and really did enjoy the book, and the last bit of the story brought me to tears. It's about the people in a little village in Poland, beginning before WWII and jumps back and forth to the present time.

The Apothecary's Daughter

Julie Klassen wrote this book, set in the early 1800s. In a lot of ways it's a typical romance from that time period, with one girl trying to decide between her many suitors. But, there is also the struggle of a young girl trying to keep her father's apothecary going in the face of a culture that doesn't approve of women accomplishing anything in the medical field. I especially enjoyed reading details about outdated medical treatments (leeches, blood-letting, etc.) and the tensions between physicians and apothecaries.

I was a little annoyed to keep coming across typos--sentences that didn't read smoothly because of missed, added, or changed words.

I would rate this worth reading, especially if you're looking for a clean historical romance that has only the slightest hints of religion in it.

Songs of the Humpback Whale

I just finished reading this book, by Jodi Picoult, and it was typical to Picoult's writing: emotionally charged, interesting characters, well written.

I have only recently been able to put into words an observation about writing: Just because you have an interesting story to tell doesn't make you a good writer; even if you don't have an interesting story to tell, you can still write a good story. Picoult is from the second category. Not that this wasn't an interesting story, but some aspects of the story line were cliches: a marriage in which the husband and wife have grown apart due to him being a workaholic; a daughter caught in the midst of it; the wife's past of abuse comes back to haunt her; falling in love with people they shouldn't fall in love with; the husband realizing what he is missing when the wife and daughter run away and going to find them.

But the book is incredibly well done. Same old story, yet told in an interesting way. That, to me, is a fantastic author.

One of the techniques that Picoult used to make this book unique is she wrote the story from the perspective of several different people. All of the narrators told the story front to back, except for one, who tells the story back to front. So you know what happens at the end in the very beginning of the book, but the book is so engaging that you want to read it anyway.

The Lobster Chronicles

I recently listened to The Lobster Chronicles: Life on a Very Small Island, by Linda Greenlaw. I was intrigued by the title since my life lately has been spent in very small, isolated communities. (Okay, Juneau is not so small, but it is very isolated since you have to get here by either boat or plane.)

This book is almost more a series of essays than a novel, yet it still flows well as a whole. Greenlaw describes lobstering and some of the perks and shortcomings of living in an isolated place. It kept my interest, but wasn't riveting by any means (great as far as I'm concerned--interesting enough to make me pick it back up, not so fascinating that it keeps me up at night until I'm finished).

I'm pretty sure that Greenlaw did the reading herself for the audio book, which I'm not a fan of in general. So the audio wasn't great, but I would be interested in looking for her other books in the paper form.

Two Old Women

This is a short book by Velma Wallis, recording a legend from a native tribe in northern Alaska. The story is about two old women (imagine that!) who are left behind to die by their people in a time of famine, and how the two manage to survive and develop a friendship. It has some interesting looks into survival and betrayal and culture, all in a very quick read.

mennonite in a little black dress

Although in general I'm coming to despise this genre of books; the middle aged woman writing a memoir about finding herself after a failed marriage she has spent her adulthood cultivating (ugh, double ugh, and why didn't you realize this years ago or before you married him?), this book I can recommend to others.

The author, Rhoda Janzen, has a great vocabulary (i used the dictionary several times), interesting and fresh ways of describing things, and overall has a comedic style of writing. I dislike her overall viewpoint on life and the conclusions she comes to, but enjoyed learning more about the mennonite culture (and all that cabbage inspired food.)