two recommendations

Recently two books were recommened to me by my reading buddies and I enjoyed reading them both.



The Pioneer Women: this is the blogging of a young women going from city to country life. I cannot knock it because here I am blogging. Maybe someday my blogs will be turned into a book!?!!  I had high expectations for this book, and found it to be a quick, light read.

My mom's book club had read:



And I really enjoyed this book! Great literature, very engaging story about a women's search for her true identity, spanning 3 generations. The book was filled with vivid descriptions of life and love and pain and joy.

The Forgotten Garden takes root in your imagination and grows into something enchanting--from a little girl with no memories left alone on a ship to Australia, to a fog-soaked London river bend where orphans comfort themselves with stories of Jack the Ripper, to a Cornish sea heaving against wind-whipped cliffs, crowned by an airless manor house where an overgrown hedge maze ends in the walled garden of a cottage left to rot. This hidden bit of earth revives barren hearts, while the mysterious Authoress's fairy tales (every bit as magical and sinister as Grimm's) whisper truths and ignite the imaginary lives of children. As Morton draws you through a thicket of secrets that spans generations, her story could cross into fairy tale territory if her characters weren't clothed in such complex flesh, their judgment blurred by the heady stench of emotions (envy, lust, pride, love) that furtively flourished in the glasshouse of Edwardian society. While most ache for a spotless mind's eternal sunshine, the Authoress meets the past as "a cruel mistress with whom we must all learn to dance," and her stories gift children with this vital muscle memory. --Mari Malcolm

Books into movies

I am happy to report the movie The Help


did a great job bringing the book to life. I did not notice a few minor changes from the book to the movie (Mary Lou reminded me, thank you!). I think the changes were just to make the movie more appealing to a wider audience. Craig went with me and even enjoyed the movie, without having read the book. I loved the book and loved the movie too! Great way to spend a few hours in the theatre, transporting yourself back to the 60's.

My daughter Mary and her friend Sarah and I went to see Sarah's Key,


Mary & I had both read the book, and although Sarah had not read it yet, we all loved the movie. I think they did a great job bringing the book to life. Some of you might find it a tough movie to watch because of the story-line and the subtitles for the dialogue that is spoken in French. But I would highly recommend this book and movie too!
The book; Sarah's Key, by Tatiana de Rosnay was very well written, however, I would not recommend it to everyone, because the storyline is a very difficult topic to read about, a time in France's history that has been swept under the rug, during WW2, and the sending of thousands of Jews to concentration camps.

Just finished reading - fast reads

I just finished reading two books that were fast, easy reads, ....both very different genres, but fun to wizz through.

French Lessons -  Ellen Sussman

Easy reading, a day in the life of 3 tutors of French in Paris, romance and drama, but left me wanting to know more about the characters.

The Mozart Conspiracy - Scott Mariani



If you like murder, mystery, fiction mixing with historical non-fiction, you will love this book. Reminded me of other similiar books such as The Da Vinci Code.

So little time,

With so many great books out there, and so little time, I think I need to be more discriminating about what I choose to read. Do you ever think that too?

I just finished two books listed on the bestsellers list and a third one that was recommended to me;

The Paris Wife, which was just ok....I was a bit disappointed by it, sadly...


Room: which was a real page-turner, I couldn't put it down....


Skipping A Beat: was a quick easy read, light....


Actually, I did NOT read "I still Dream about You" by Fannie Flagg after about 20 pages, it was just too depressing at the start, so I just let that one go. Hard decision, but I needed to move on.

So many great books and so little time!

Non-Fiction favorites

This one I am recommending to everyone, ....maybe for my next book club selection? An amazing story, very informative, very well written, just made me want to learn more about this family!



The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks a fascinating and moving story of medicine and family, of how life is sustained in laboratories and in memory. Henrietta Lacks was a mother of five in Baltimore, a poor African American migrant from the tobacco farms of Virginia, who died from a cruelly aggressive cancer at the age of 30 in 1951. A sample of her cancerous tissue, taken without her knowledge or consent, as was the custom then, turned out to provide one of the holy grails of mid-century biology: human cells that could survive--even thrive--in the lab. Known as HeLa cells, their stunning potency gave scientists a building block for countless breakthroughs, beginning with the cure for polio. Meanwhile, Henrietta's family continued to live in poverty and frequently poor health, and their discovery decades later of her unknowing contribution--and her cells' strange survival--left them full of pride, anger, and suspicion. For a decade, Skloot doggedly but compassionately gathered the threads of these stories, slowly gaining the trust of the family while helping them learn the truth about Henrietta.

Another non-fiction author that I discovered through my girlfriends recommendations; Karen M and Marcia B, both told me about these two books by Robert Kurson.

I especially loved, found very fascinating;

The biography of Mike May, a highly successful entrepreneur, athlete, husband and father who undergoes experimental surgery to regain the vision that he lost in a chemical explosion at age three. When May chooses to pursue the risky procedure, he rejects the notion of blindness as an infirmity that requires healing. Instead, May views the restoration of sight as a new adventure to explore with the same gusto that he has demonstrated in all facets of life. Without pathos or pity, Welch vividly portrays May's challenge of processing the mental complexities of his newfound vision, including navigating the aisles of Costco and recognizing the gender of patrons at a neighborhood coffee bar.



Shadow Divers, the true story of a deadly search for a German U-boat off the coast of New Jersey,

More great recommendations

I have had the pleasure of reading alot of great books this summer. The ones below are based on recommendations from fellow teachers friends. Fun reads that really hit home if you work with kids in any capacity! I highly recommend these too!

This one could have been written by my daughter Hanna, she experienced alot of the same things as this author. Non-fiction, very insightful!


This one was recommended by a High School English teacher, and I would suggest everyone read this - nonfiction, very inspiring!



This one is very insightful as to what life is like for middle-school - to high school students, this is such a challenging lifetime for all kids to go through. Very well written, fictional, but so real too, not for the faint-of-heart!

Books into Movies

Book Club Buddies have read many books that have been made into movies. It is always been fun to take a field trip to see the movie after the book club discussion.


One of our earliest and my most favorite book-to-movie was: Like Water for Chocolate: A Novel in Monthly Installments with Recipes, Romances, and Home Remedies, by Laura Esquivel




Like Water for Chocolate, the movie - I remember there were 5 of us who drove into Chicago to see the movie, it had not been widely released yet, and it was in Spanish with English subtitles! We read each other exerpts from the book in the car on the way into Chicago. We giggled like high-school girls during the steamy parts of the movie, the other people in the theater must have thought we were really wacky! It was soooo fun!

What were some of the others? 

The Hours, by Michael Cunningham


 

Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austin at Nancy's house!