So Many Books, So Little Time

My plate is full and I'm not hungry... family tasks, work tasks, home tasks, personal tasks.  So many things to do and escaping in a good book isn't appealing at the moment.  I have a number of books going right now: a number I have downloaded into my Kindle, several waiting in Audible, a bunch I brought back from TLA but haven't started... and none of them have grabbed me.  We'll see what I finish first.

Currently listening to:  The Body by Stephen King, Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway, Catch-22 by Joseph Heller, Your Kids are Your Own Fault by Larry Winget, and I Thought it Was Just Me by Brene Brown.

Currently reading:  The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson, Medicus by Ruth Downie, and No Good Deed by Mary McDonald.

I suspect some of these will remain abandoned.  And I suspect that the next book I blog about will be none of the above... It will likely be one I read for book club... which doesn't meet for several weeks.

Have you read any of the above?  A good recommendation may get me moving again.

#10 - Water for Elephants

Beautiful!  This was a book I hated to see end.  Told as a memoir, this historical look at the railroad circus was highly entertaining and poignant.

#9 - The Abstinence Teacher

This book was a surprise.  Expecting a more political debate about curriculum decisions, I found myself looking at the different views of Christianity.... and not so much in regard to curriculum - particularly Sex Ed, as the title implies.  To believe or not, that was the question.

I found the ending particularly disappointing - I think the author took the easy way out.

#8 - Cutting for Stone

I purchased this book on audible.com after reading a review that compared it to The Help.  Personally, I would not have compared the two at all.  The Help is set in 60's America, told from multiple perspectives, and addresses early views of civil rights.  Cutting for Stone takes place primarily in Ethiopia, tells the life story of orphaned twins - the sons of an American missionary and an Indian nun working together at a missionary hospital.  This book was much slower to grab me - and had I been reading it from the printed page, I may have abandoned it.  It was much easier to keep listening while in my car with nothing else to do.  But once it finally hooked me (about 1/4 into it), I couldn't wait to hear more and dreaded it ending.

I find it a curious follow up to Roots and The Help.  I have certainly broadened my perspectives of Africa and African-Americans this year.

#7 - The Help

I finished this book in February and thought I had posted about it... but there is not post.  So, here goes.

Several people had mentioned this book so I gave it a try.  LOVED IT.  I listened to this one through audible.com, and with the different voices the story is told in, audio seems the perfect choice.  This was a good follow up to Roots... picking up where it left off.

This very insightful look at white and black society in the South during the  60's was eye-opening.  I found listening about the world I was born into (how can the 60's now be historical fiction?!?) particularly fascinating.  Hats off to brave people everywhere who change history!