This was the perfect book to fall asleep listening to. It wasn't so much that it was boring, as that the cadence of the narration is very soothing.  The author employs a writing technique in which he makes long lists of things, often the latin names for plants or animals, that might interest the hardcore biologist and botanist enthusiasts, but I found lulled me to sleep, like a lullaby.  In fact, I would listen to the same chapter several nights in a row, having not made it to the end of even one chapter before I drifted off to sleep.  I would like to say that the book was light and pleasant, as he describes at length the natural spaces that he is so drawn to--and there is something compelling about how much he loves these spaces and wants to make sure they are preserved--and yet the racism of 1901 finds its way into a world it has no business being.  This is in addition to the complete exclusion of women from the narrative in any meaningful way.  All said, I just can't recommend it.

​Not recommended.

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A short, quick read about two young adults connecting with their grandparents on a road trip while the elders not so subtly try to set them up.  It is cute and light, but not sexy enough to be actual romance and too old for a young adult type romance. 


Not recommended

There are some things about this book to really love, particularly in the second half, but I had to really slog my way through the first part of it.  There is a lot of graphic intimate violence use to set the scene for what at first feels like an intergenerational story about trauma and "survival" that doesn't feel like survival at all.  The story itself, though, gets muddled before it gets sorted out at all, as it begins to unfold on two timelines--the original one of misery and a second one in which a movie is being made about the first one and so research ensues that leads to being able to fill in some of the blanks in the historical timeline. 

Eventually, and I do mean eventually because it takes a very, very long time, the two storylines start to make sense and remarkably intertwined as the connections become clear.  The second half or so of the book shifts away from the abuse and neglect, but leaves the pain and dysfunction that comes from unstable and unsafe early lives.  The impact, of course , of intergenerational trauma plays out through the lives, leaving expected fallout in its wake.  

Once we move beyond the backstory, the book significantly improves as the main character becomes obsessed with learning to fly as a young girl and remains fixated on that throughout her life, leading to adventures and relationships, with story twists and turns that are unanticipated, but not entirely unforeseen. 

If you can make it through the sexualized violence, addiction, and generalized misery that is the backbone of the story and like historical women's fiction, you'll do well with this one. Also, if you are interested in flying airplanes or travel to the north and south poles, you will probably find those parts of the story particularly interesting.  For me, the start was too much of a struggle to get through for a recommendation, even though by the end I liked the story.

Not recommended.

Read by the famous actor author guy that I don't think I knew who he was before I read it, this book is memoir mixed with poetry, bumper stickers, and other random thoughts.  The underlying theme seemed to be a reflection on how lucky his life has been and how undeserving of everything he has attained because of his fame and fortune, but it felt a bit empty to me. I kept waiting for that to translate into something meaningful, something bigger about life, but it just kind of fizzled into this commentary about how he moved out of LA and back home with his wife and kids so that they could have a life with less fanfare and be closer to family.  There was no moment, no point to the narrative and I was left with this sense that while his reading voice had a catchy cadence, there was a distinct lack of substance.

Not recommended.

Perky and face-paced, this friends, lovers, or something else romance was so good...until it wasn't.  Nothing about it felt cliched or trite...up until the very end.  The characters were dynamic and quirky, the relationship atypical and fun...until out of nowhere at the very end it turned into...well, spoiler alert...exactly like you would expect every other similar type of romance novel to be.  Even the dialogue went from witty banter to sappy crap in the blink of an eye.  The concept was so good and the writing was clipping along until bam!  It was an incredible let down.  I don't know what I was expecting at the end, but I wasn't expecting the exact opposite of what the rest of the book was--Why would you go from quirky, unpredictable, and funny to conventional, overdone, and derivative? No thanks.

​Not recommended.

Not only did I love this book, I could not stop craving Chinese food for weeks after I finished it.  Even just thinking about the books makes me want to connect with friends around shared dishes for dinner.  The story of a recently widowed food critic on a trip to China that combines the personal and professional sets up this travel/food novel about truth, forgiveness, family, connection, grief, and love. The way the ritual of preparing, ordering, and eating food across families and cultures made for thoughtful reading.  I hardly stopped reading from start to finish.  The plot and narrative prose both resonated with me and I was all in right from the start.

Highly recommend.

This is a collection of essays with lots of interesting observations about life and the world, but the author is just such a whiner, I could not stand it.  He is just a grumpy old man complaining about everything in the guise of being funny.  Perhaps as a column meant to be read one a week, it would have been less grating, but when strung together I just felt an overwhelming urge to tell him to shut up until he had something nice to say.
Not recommended.

​ In 1996, I explored the Green River from Moab, Utah, to its confluence with the Colorado River in a canoe with my soon to be husband for 16 days.  This was before cell phones and we were completely off the grid.  Our camera and water filters broke, which caused us to get sick, but it was still just an absolutely fabulous trip.  After a few days, we didn't need the guidebook to find the ruins, petroglyphs, or water springs.  We felt connected to the earth and the people who used to live there in exactly the way that you hope to on a wilderness adventure like that.  I would have loved to have been reading this book on that trip.  I think the author took a similar trip in which he imaged what it must have been like to live in Chaco, Mesa Vera, or the Canyonlands where we were.  The difference is that while we spent two weeks reading the guidebooks and exploring on our own for days, he spent years doing it and gaining access to experts and to locations that are generally not accessible to the public.  I am not sure how I feel about that, though.  There was something that felt off about how he was doing his research and exploring that made me question our experience and whether I was appropriately reverent of those locations at the time.  There was so much information in this book, woven in with his personal travel stories and narratives about how he was able to find and access human remains, artifacts, and sacred locations. Some of the time, I related to his quest, having had that amazing trip myself, but there were points when it felt to me that he crossed a line.  Not being trained in anthropology and not being indigenous, I don't know where that feeling comes from and I wasn't able to find an analysis online that resonated with this sense that I got.  If you are doing a trip to these locations, I think it would be an interesting book to read while there since I have long thought that when in Rome, you should read about Rome, but otherwise, I would skip it. 
Not recommended

This is a fun little book about starting a restaurant on a shoe string budget, with no experience and no funds.  It is an interesting story and written in an upbeat, fast paced manner.  If you are interested in business start-up, happy ending stories (not a spoiled since he makes it clear all along that it becomes a success) or living and working abroad, then it would be a good read, but for general interest there just wasn't quite enough here to recommend it.

Not not recommended.

Written like a travel log, this firsthand account of small town Mississippi was  intriguing and insightful.  I loved the interspersed history provided as a backdrop to the traditions and politics of a community struggling to let go of southern values. 

Recommend.