A Separate Peace by John Knowles

I think this is a classic book, but I honestly had never heard of it before. I read it for my book club, and I'm glad it is a book club book, because I feel like I will need to talk about it with someone because I don't know that I really understood most of it. The book is about two boys in a boarding school in New Hampshire in 1942, while the war was coming closer and closer to them and how the war changed everything and began to change and affect everyone, all of the boys. It was also about how the relationship between Gene (the narrator) and Finny (Phineas) soured and was poisoned by Gene's resentment and jealousy of Finny. I kind of hated reading about how Gene acted and how he thought, because it was too close to home in how we all act on our own insecurities sometimes. Both Gene and Finny learn a lot about themselves through Gene's betrayals, and I think that's kind of the point of the book (that, and the terrible effects of war on people). But honestly, I need to see what other people think at book club so that I can figure it out. I didn't love this--it felt a little too depressing to me, and I don't know that it's worth a read again.

The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry by Kathleen Flinn

I didn't realize until I was halfway through this book that it was written by the same author of The Kitchen Counter Cooking School, which I read so long ago that I hardly remember any of it (except that I loved it and bought a copy so I could have the recipes for basic things like making stock). I basically only listened to this because it was available as an audiobook, and I was searching for some more books to listen to. It's not usually a good idea to listen to books with recipes in them, since you have to listen to them read a recipe instead of being able to see them. But I was really enthralled and interested in the story that Flinn wove, intertwining her new relationship with her husband with her moving to Paris to study at the Cordon Bleu cooking school, and all the lessons she learned there. I was fascinated learning about all the things that they studied there--like basically butchering every kind of animal and making many different kinds of sauces. Every recipe sounded incredibly complicated, and it reminded me of how basically incompetent I am in the kitchen compared to a professional. I think of myself as a pretty decent cook, but I stick to the level of browning meat for tacos and making spaghetti and meatballs. I don't de-bone chickens or fillet fish or spend hours making one dish. It's kind of the same experience as watching the Great British Bake-Off--I was super impressed by the amount of knowledge and skill she (and everyone else at the school) had to have to even be there to learn cooking. Flinn did an amazing job of talking about the specific things they studied in the school, and what she was doing at the same time in her personal life, and I thought it went really well together. It was a surprisingly compelling read (listen) considering it was "just" a food-based memoir. I really enjoyed it and it made me want to learn more cooking skills... someday.

Shakespeare: The World as Stage by Bill Bryson

This was another one of my getting-ready-for-our-trip-to-England books, although we aren't going to make it to Stratford-upon-Avon this trip (although I would love to). It just so happens that Bill Bryson wrote this, in addition to the British travelogues that I've been reading as well, but it has a very different feel from his other books, since it is much more research-based and factual than just wandering around England and writing about how he got annoyed getting soaked in the rain. I really liked how this book was very concise and to the point--I felt like I understood all of the salient facts about Shakespeare's life, all that we really know about him, and that I was able to point out what is conjecture (95% of what people say about him) and what is fact (just a few basic things based on governmental records, saying where he was baptized and married and a few other things). I loved his (not super-in-depth) analysis of how Shakespeare wrote and how he changed the English language--I found it fascinating to see how many new words he coined and how many commonly used phrases all came from his writing. I also liked how he pointed out his imperfection with writing, and how there are some lines in his plays that are impossible to understand (suggesting that he was sloppy or rushed as he wrote). I also really liked how Bryson basically demolishes all of the arguments about how Shakespeare didn't really write Shakespeare in the last chapter, and very logically takes apart all their reasons for dismissing Shakespeare as the true author. I'm on his side--it seems a little silly to assume now, 500 years later, that we can argue with Shakespeare being the author when there is absolutely no contemporary proof to assist that argument.

I think this is a perfect layman's biography for Shakespeare. I have a few other books about Shakespeare checked out from the library that I'm going to try and read because I found this so interesting, so we will see how that goes. I feel like I got everything I really need to about Shakespeare from this book because it's not like there's anything else to go on.

Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren

I loved, loved Pippi Longstocking while I was growing up. I even dressed up as her for Halloween one year, with a hanger stuck into my braids to make them stick up straight and huge shoes and socks on. I also absolutely LOVE Lindgren's other books The Children of Noisy Village and Happy Times in Noisy Village and started re-reading those with Graham, since he didn't listen to them when I read them with Dane, and that made me think of Pippi Longstocking for our next read-aloud book. The boys were really into it, and Graham has been asking if there is a movie of Pippi Longstocking. They both have laughed a lot at the silly things that Pippi does, and they LOVED when Pippi was able to stop the bad boys who were beating someone up, and the thieves, and saved the kids from the fire. I think they were really impressed by her incredible strength. I liked revisiting this book, but I think I'll have Dane read the other two Pippi books on his own.

Seriously... I'm Kidding by Ellen DeGeneres

I listened to this audiobook in one day... because it was only three hours long. It was a bunch of super short chapters of Ellen's favorite types of humor--over the top, silly, and kind of expected once you get used to hearing her. I laughed a bunch of times while listening to this, but a lot of the chapters were just gimmicks, like just a few words or sentences, and there wasn't a ton of actual writing in this. It was a fun audiobook, but I don't feel a huge need to listen to her other books she's written.

Women at Church: Magnifying LDS Women's Local Impact by Neylan McBaine

I bought this book years ago when it came out, but never actually read it because of all the other books on my bedside stand, and it eventually migrated to my bookshelf where it sat for the last few years. But I finally pulled it out and read it this week, and loved the ideas in it, about figuring out ways to improve and increase women's visibility and abilities in our church. But the thing that I loved most about it was that the book already felt so outdated, even in just the few years since it was published! This book was written around the time of the Ordain Women movement, and so much has happened since then--ending the Church's relationship with Scouts and soon adding a new program for the youth, which will give boys and girls the same program and no added benefits for boys; the change in the temple ordinances; and several other things that I can't think of off the top of my head as I'm writing things. Haha! Just in reading this, I thought it was so clear that the Church is heading in the right direction, even though it's maybe hard to see it as it moves so incrementally. I am so grateful that our kids will grow up with this new program that will give the girls and boys equal funding and opportunities, for example. The thing I would like to see changed most is seeing more women speakers at General Conference to increase the impact and authority of women speakers. I know that this will happen eventually, and I am grateful to live in a Church that changes and adapts.

It felt like she was writing to a fairly conservative, orthodox audience. A good bit of her book was aimed at explaining why some women are struggling and why these changes are positive, for those people who don't understand it. I felt like she did a good job of bridging the gap between those two warring camps, and helping people to empathize with others. I loved many of her ideas of changes that could be made, and I loved reading about solutions that stakes were coming up with, and all the flexible and interested stake presidents who wanted to make women more visible and authoritative. It made me feel hopeful and excited to imagine all the possibilities. I know there are lots of opposing stories out there that could counter these positive ones, but I hope they are decreasing slowly but surely.

Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life by Steve Martin

I kind of love listening to memoirs written by celebrities and read by those same celebrities as audiobooks. Born Standing Up is one of those, written by Steve Martin and read by him, telling the story of his stand-up comedy career and how he started from nothing and got famous. I felt like it was kind of a sad story in a lot of ways, starting with his childhood with a distant and angry father, and with his struggles with depression and anxiety even as he became famous. It was really interesting learning about how the stand-up comedy world works, and how he slowly came up with his own bits over years and years and years of hard work, and how he went from being an opener for bigger acts to being the biggest act in stand-up comedy in the seventies. He didn't really go into his later career--he talked a little bit about how he started to transition into movies, but he was mainly focusing on his stand-up and he stopped there. That was my only real complaint with this book--it felt incomplete to only talk about a ten- or fifteen-year span of Steve Martin's career when there was so much after it. But I guess that was the point of the book for him. It was only about four hours of listening, so it was quick, easy, and interesting. A great combination, particularly since the last three or four audiobooks I've been listening to have all been 16+ hours, so I needed something short!

Lila by Marilynne Robinson

I am feeling so relieved to have finally, finally, after years and years, finished the Gilead trilogy with reading this and Home. Each are so beautifully written and so thoughtful and stunning. I have to say that I think Gilead is my favorite, because of its beautiful depiction of a father writing to his son, and all of the love that you can feel in Robinson's writing and descriptions. But Home was beautiful too, with its look at Jack Boughton and his attempt to come home, and Lila seemed like Robinson's attempt to explain the concept of grace and existence and why things are the way they are. Lila is the Reverend John Ames's wife, and she seems almost like a non-entity in the other books--not really a non-entity, but just a quiet shadow who is interesting because of the little you know about her, but who doesn't say very much and who you never know very much about her thoughts (except that scene in Home where she interrupts the two old ministers' arguing about predestination and says very calmly that "people can change." I loved that). But this book gives you her whole story, slowly, in pieces, mixed in with the story of how she met the Reverend John Ames and how they got married, up until the time their baby was born, and how she began to try to reconcile her past life with her new married life, and her old beliefs with what her reverend husband is preaching every Sunday. She is especially concerned with the idea that they will someday be judged based on their actions, as she thinks about the woman who raised her, who did so many things judged to be wrong (particularly killing someone), but who she knows was good and who loved her when no one else did, and who she wants to be with after she dies. Lila isn't learned, but she slowly begins to put together what she believes and what she knows, and it is these musings mixed with her recollections and stories about her life, that she remembers and that she whispers/thinks to herself and her new baby, that make up the whole of this book.

I think the last few pages are so beautiful, and true. They sum up the whole story, and are worth typing up here. I think this is what Robinson does so beautifully--she writes the truth in such a beautiful way. I believe this wholeheartedly--people worry so much about having "no empty seats" and about people not making it to heaven, but I believe that this is true, that God will be kinder and more generous than we can imagine in every way.

"In eternity people's lives could be altogether what they were and had been, not just the worst things they ever did, or the best things either. So she decided that she should believe in it, or that she believed in it already. How else could she imagine seeing Doll again? Never once had she taken her to be dead, plain and simple. If any scoundrel could be pulled into heaven just to make his mother happy, it couldn't be fair to punish scoundrels who happened to be orphans, or whose mothers didn't even like them, and who would probably have better excuses for the harm they did than the ones who had somebody caring about them. It couldn't be fair to punish people for trying to get by, people who were good by their own lights, when it took all the courage they had to be good...
"There was no way to abandon guilt, no decent way to disown it. All the tangles and knots of bitterness and desperation and fear had to be pitied. No, better, grace had to fall over them. Doll hunched in the firelight whetting her courage, dreaming vengeance because she knew someone somewhere was dreaming vengeance against her. Thinking terrible thoughts to blunt her own fear.
"That's how it is. Lila had borne a child into the world where a wind could rise that would take him from her arms as if there were no strength in them at all. Pity us, yes, but we are brave, she thought, and wild, more life in us than we can bear, the fire infolding itself in us. That peace could only be amazement, too."

I will say that I loved this, loved the writing and loved the message, but it took me forever to get through it. Robinson's writing is wonderful, but she does not write page-turners. It takes mental energy to sit down and work through them, and I didn't devote the time to her books. It took me a month to get through the first half of this book, then I just sat down and polished off the second half tonight because I couldn't leave it any longer. I enjoyed it once I set my mind to it, but there's nothing quick or easy about her writing.

Dreams of Gods and Monsters by Laini Taylor

I think I may have liked this book the best of the trilogy, maybe because I already accepted Carou and Akiva and their romance, and because I kind of understood what was going on and I felt invested in finding out what the heck happens to them and to their world. I felt like the second book ended on such a cliffhanger (with the angels coming to earth) and it seemed like there was no way that the chimaera and Misbegotten would be able to work together to save their world. But I don't think it's too much of a spoiler to say that they DID save their world, and I liked how the plot took you back and forth between Eretz (I'm not sure how to spell any of these words since I listened to these books) and our world, and how many of the smaller elements of the first book ended up having bigger impacts and bigger stories behind them (like the source of Akiva's magic, for example). I loved all of the dramatic twists and changes in the story, and I'm impressed by Taylor's ability to weave a storyline that's hard to predict. And I felt like the ending was a little overdone, where Carou and Akiva are finally allowed to get together, despite the Fates keeping them apart (drama drama, so much yearning and longing for each other), but there was so much leading up to it that I guess I can forgive Taylor that. This was definitely a fun cotton-candy series to listen to--a well-written story in an interesting world, and the first book was so different from the last two that I felt really compelled to finish the series. I really enjoyed this last book.

Moon Over Manifest by Clare Vanderpool

This book is a Newbery winner from 2013, and is about a young girl in 1930s Kansas who is sent by her dad to live in his old hometown, and she spends the summer on a mission to learn as much as she can about her father and what he was like in the year or two that he lived there. The storyline of the book is split between 1936, when Abilene is hunting for information about her dad, and 1918, when her dad was a young kid living there. The 1918 storyline covers a lot of important historical events, like WWI and the Spanish influenza epidemic, plus tells the story of an interesting town filled with immigrants from all over Europe.

I read this for my book club, and I'm happy that it was also a Newbery winner so that it helped to count for that goal of mine as well, but I did not love it. For some reason I just couldn't get into it. I think it's one I might have liked more when I was a kid, but I never really got into the story or invested in the characters, and it felt like a chore to read. Some of the conflicts seemed totally contrived and not believable, and I don't think that should be allowed even in a middle-grade novel that's meant to be read by tweens and young teens. Definitely not my favorite book but not terrible... I wonder if my kids will like it when they get a little older.

Notes from a Small Island by Bill Bryson

I've read many of Bill Bryson's books--most of them before I started writing on this blog, some of them even when I was in college and barely had any time to read for fun. His I'm a Stranger Here Myself is one of my favorites, and I often think about his A Walk in the Woods where he travels along the Appalachian Trail, which I listened to while running along the trails in North Carolina. But I'd never read this book about England, and since Tommy and I are going to England in August for our tenth anniversary, this was one of my England books that I wanted to read before going there. (I only have about 20 books on that list, haha!) Bryson is an American who has spent almost his entire adult life living in Great Britain, and this book is about a period of two months that he spent traveling around Great Britain and visiting many different towns and areas. I really enjoyed the parts where he was talking about British culture and personalities and interests, and sometimes lost interest in the very nitty-gritty travelogue details that he went into in all of the tiny towns that he visited. I loved his love for this country, and his admiration of its many virtues, and it made me really excited to go there (and wishing I could spend longer). I wouldn't say this was a super fascinating read for the most part--it was too long-winded and too much focused on all of the little facts about all of the towns he visited, and it all started to blend together after a while--but I liked the overall effect of it and I'm planning to read his second book about England next.

Becoming by Michelle Obama

I waited for like three months to get this on audiobook from the library. And it was worth it! I really enjoyed listening to Obama's memoir about her life. The first few chapters about her childhood were less interesting to me, but I totally understand why she needed to include them--to help set the background of her life because that helped to frame all of her future decisions and desires. Most of her career shifts and interests stemmed from her desire to reach out to those who grew up like her, on the South Side of Chicago, but who didn't have the same help and opportunities and support to go to an Ivy League school like she did. I was really interested to learn more about her background and what she did before going to the White House, and I loved how relatable she was. I felt like she was exactly like me with her husband going into politics--she is very outspoken about the fact that she didn't want Barack going into politics, that she was always hoping that he would not get elected for whatever race he was running for, and that she wanted him home with their family more. But eventually she realized he had really good things to offer and she wanted the country to have a good president like him. I felt like that was an interesting choice to have to make--to have to basically sacrifice your husband to the greater good, so that he could help the whole country of America, but basically to miss out on having him at home with your family. She said that when he became president, they actually got to see him more often because he was always able to be there for dinner, whereas when he was a state senator and senator he was always away. I don't know that I could have withstood that sort of decision with as much grace as Michelle Obama did. She sounds like she basically had to be a single parent almost all of the time, and have to wrestle with her decisions about what to be and what to do. I loved hearing about her time in the White House and learning more about her initiatives that she embraced as the First Lady, and I loved how she was honest but classy in talking about Donald Trump. She made it clear that she did not like him or respect him, but only mentioned him a few times and didn't dwell on what a nasty piece of work he is. She talked about the election night when the numbers started coming in showing that he was going to win, she just left the room and went to sleep because she wanted to delay knowing that he was going to win for as long as possible--which was exactly the same response that I had as well.

All in all, I really got a sense that I would like Michelle Obama after listening to this. She definitely seemed classy, and I really respected her. After two years of Donald Trump in the White House, it makes me sad to look back and see what it was like having two decent, hard-working, caring people there just before him.

Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate

I read this for my book club (although once again, I won't be able to attend it) and I didn't love it. It's about an adoption agency in the 1940s that would literally kidnap children from their homes with poor parents or single mothers and then send the kids out to other families, and about one set of siblings that was taken in that way. I think that's why I didn't love it, because I hate any stories that have anything to do with kids being put in danger or having bad things happen to them. I know that those things are real and that they happen, but I don't like reading about them in my books. There was a parallel modern-day storyline that follows one of the siblings' granddaughter finding out about the mystery of her grandmother's childhood and life, and unraveling the mystery to be able to help her grandmother come in contact with her sisters again. This storyline was not sad, which made me more likely to read it than just skim (like I was honestly doing in the 1930s chapters), but all of the conflict and issues the character was facing in this storyline seemed really over-inflated. Oh no! I'm worried that my parents are going to be disappointed because I don't want to run for the Senate at the age of 30! I'm attracted to this guy that I had a way over-the-top argument at our first meeting even though I'm engaged to this fiancee that I clearly don't care that much about! I'm finding one or two hints of my grandmother having a life that I wasn't aware of--this is SO WEIRD! I'm worried that people are going to find out about my grandmother's past as a child who was stolen and adopted and I think that will ruin my father's Senatorial career! (What? Why would that affect it??) The whole storyline was not super believable to me and all of the emotions seemed to be over-the-top and exaggerated. The writing in this book was also just average.

I can't say I loved this book (obviously) but it was a quick read and I was interested in the look into history about Georgia Tann's adoption agency, even though it's a horrible part of history. I was kind of sick thinking about how these things are still happening with immigrant families trying to come to the United States, and how their kids are getting taken from them. It's an important story if it helps people think about those issues.