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January 10, 2010

Fingerprints of God by Barbara Bradley Hagerty

January 10, 2010

10January

Audiobook. The former NPR reporter explores her research for the science of spirituality. She lets us know right away that she grew up in a Christian Science home and her grandmother was a widely known practitioner. It was when she was miserable with a cold that she abandoned Christian Science for Tylenol, but her faith is always in evidence in this book. She writes about her interviews with...

January 1, 2010

The Secret River by Kate Grenville

January 1, 2010

01January

This is my second book by Kate Grenville and the one that won the Orange Prize. It begins with the description of the child Will Thornhill in the desperate slums of London and his redeeming connection with his childhood girlfriend, whose situation was much better than his. He eventually does well, with the help of his father-in-law until a long freeze shuts down his work on the...

December 26, 2009

Alex & Me by Irene Pepperberg

December 26, 2009

26December

I was recounting stories of funny things parrots say to two librarian friends and one suggested I read Alex & Me, the story of woman who has a PhD in chemistry from MIT but has spent her work life researching animal behavior using an African Grey Parrot she had for 30 years. She makes the case that Alex could label many items correctly enough times so that it was not a chance event. She...

December 20, 2009

Eight Months on Ghazzah Street: A Novel by Hilary Mantel

December 20, 2009

20December

Ghazzah Street is in Jeddah where Frances goes to join her husband, an engineer already working in Saudi Arabia. The book was written in 1988 after the greatest boom time there; oil prices were down. Frances and Andrew were expats working in Africa when they were tempted by a job for Andrew for high pay with unlimited resources for building. As it turned out in so many areas...

December 10, 2009

The Wilderness by Samantha Harvey

December 10, 2009

10December

Audiobook. Another Reading Matters recommendation. A wonderfully told story of the life of a man looking back on his life as his memory is overcome by Alzheimer's disease. The loss of occasional words, then reliable memories, eventually his ability to recognize his closest friends and family is a significant part of this story. More important is that we learn about...

December 4, 2009

A Castle in the Backyard: the Dream of a House in France by Betsy Draine and Michael Hinden

December 4, 2009

04December

I eventually concluded that I had read this book before, but that was no obstacle to enjoying it. It's like daydreaming; always a pleasure. A married couple who are both English professors from the University of Wisconsin and francophiles hit upon the scheme of buying a house in the Dordogne region of France where they would live each summer. The town they eventually settled on...

November 27, 2009

The Shark Net by Robert Drewe

November 27, 2009

27November

It is nice to have read coming of age memoirs by literary figures of roughly the same era from opposite coasts of Australia; Clive James was born in 1939 and grew up in Sydney, Robert Drewe was born in 1943 and moved from Melbourne to Perth at a young age. I hadn’t realized the importance of shoes to teenage boys until I read these two books. Clive James bought shoes called “brothel...

November 25, 2009

Traveling with Pomegranates by Sue Monk Kidd and Ann Kidd Taylor

November 25, 2009

25November

Audiobook. This audiobook, read by the mother and daughter authors, was loaned to me by Mary Susan. I had read Sue Monk Kidd’s The Secret Life of Bees years ago and liked it. And this one was quite pleasing too. It begins with a trip to Greece the two took together just as Ann was finishing college and continues through Sue’s decision to begin writing fiction, a trip to France...

November 18, 2009

Books to Read

November 18, 2009

18November

Paul Auster's Invisible. The NYT reviewer thinks it's his best. Richard Flanigan. An Australian writer, a favorite of Reading Matters. Karen Armstrong's The Case for God. The Perfect Heresy: The Revolutionary Life and Death of the Medieval Cathars by Stephen O'Shea. Described In the further reading section of A Castle in the Backyard as a short...

November 17, 2009

The Spare Room by Helen Garner