Book Review
So many good books. So little time.
That is often my thought. Just recently a good friend recommended The Red Tent, an historical fiction by Anita Diamant. It turned out that quite a few of my friends had also read this book. All of them shared my feelings that it was excellent. I just finished The Kite Runner, a very informative book about Afghanistan that I would highly recommend. I am currently reading The curious incident of the dog in the night-time, a novel about an autistic boy. With so many books being written and on the market, how do we decide which ones to read. I think one of the best ways is to find out what others have read and would recommend. Another way is to attend book discussions. I currently attend one at the Rock Island Public Library and another at Mother Jone's Coffee House in Rock Island.
Please take some time and write a review of a book that you have read within the last year and that you would recommend, and write it in the comments section. Just click on "Comments" to read reviews and then add yours, putting your first and/or last name at the end. Don't worry if the book you are reviewing has been done by someone else. Write yours too as it is always interesting to see how different people view things. After you have written your comment, you will have to check "anonymous" unless you have a password with blogger.com.
Happy reviewing.
posted by don at 12:22 PM
6 Comments:
The Red Tent by Anita Diamant.
This is a story about Dinah. You will find her in the Bible in Genesis. Her father was Jacob and her mother was Leah. She is only mentioned briefly in Chapter 34 of Genesis. This is the story told by Dinah giving the author's version of her life. It is very good reading as the author goes from Dinah's birth through all her life until death. It goes into detail how Dinah lived and the customs of the land at that time. It is great how the author can tell the story of that time. How she can take one woman from the Bible and make such a wonderful story. It goes into early history from the Bible and includes other people who were in Dinah's life. It is really great how the book takes a look at life from that era of the Bible. It is very good reading. It is a story of fiction, but yet parts of the Bible are there. I would recommend this book for good reading. One that is hard to put down once you start reading it. I have read it twice now and will probably read it again.
Audrey Allen from Carbon Cliff
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
I also enjoyed reading The Red Tent and found it to be very interesting. It is unique as it is told from a woman's point of view. Dinah, Jacob's daughter and the sister of Joseph, is narrator and we see life in Old Testament times through her eyes, through the eyes of a woman. Ms Diamant has done a great deal of research as there is lots of information about birthing, cooking, and the everyday life of a woman. She describes the personalities of Jacob's four wives and his mother, Rebecca. This is a very creative work of historical fiction telling the story as it might have been. This was a book that I had difficulty putting down and, as Audrey said, would highly recommend.
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
The Kite runner is Khaled Hosseini's first book, and hopefully many more will follow. This is a story about a young boy, Amir, who grew up in Afghanistan in the 1960's. He led a life of privilege, but was constantly striving for his father's attention and approval. This book gives a vivid description of what life was like in Afghanistan and the customs of the Afghan culture. After the Russians invaded Afghanistan, Amir and his father flee to America. In America, their lives are completely different. As a married adult, Amir returns to Afghanistan and finds it completely different from his memories as the Taliban now are in control. Throughout his life he is haunted by an event that took place in his childhood - an event that he tried to forget, but kept returning until finally he decided to face it. This is a story of joy and sadness, relationships between a son and his father, a boy and his childhood friend. Hossein's style is excellent and it a difficult book to put down. I would highly recommend it.
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
I recommend books written by author Tony Hillerman. Nancy and Bob Gardner recommended his books to me several years ago, and I have enjoyed every one. They are set in the Four Corners area of the Southwest. The stories feature Navaho Tribal Police officers, Sgt. Jim Chee and Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn. Together they solve mysteries and also teach the reader about "the Navajo Way." Start with "The Dark Wind," and you will want to read more.
Janet from Carbon Cliff
Sunday, March 05, 2006
"Life changes fast.
Life changes in the instant.
You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends."
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion tells of how life as Ms. Didion knew it came to an end in an instant. She and her husband John had just arrived home from the hospital where their newly-married daughter was in septic shock, battling for her life. They sat down to dinner and John fell over dead from a massive coronary.
I recommend this book because it opens the door of understanding for those who have never experienced such grief, and for those who have, it has to be comforting to see one's own experience of grief so well-articulated.
Ms. Didion says that "grief, when it comes, is nothing we expect it to be." It comes in waves. She speaks of how she held onto the belief John would come back, and how she couldn't bring herself to get rid of his shoes because he would need them when he came home. She tells of how she was constantly "sideswiped" by memories -- for example,when she drove down a street in Los Angeles and suddenly spotted the movie theater where she and John saw "The Graduate."
One re-lives every mistake she ever made in the relationship, and struggles with the conviction that she could have prevented the death. Then, Ms. Didion explains, you get angry believing he could have avoided death.
The author tells how she found comfort in the last line of the Gloria Patri: "as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be,world without end." For her, this was "a literal description of the constant changing of the earth, the unending erosion of the shores and mountains, the inexorable shifting of the geological structures that could throw up mountains and islands and could just as reliably take them away." Change -- the only constant. You have to go with the changes. Yet the question remains: Is the eye on the sparrow?
Don Robinson
Saturday, March 11, 2006
Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi is a book everyone should read. The setting is in Iran after the revolution in the late 70's. Ms. Nafisi is a professor of literature at a University in Iran. Most of the books that she wants to teach and have her students discuss have been banned by the government and teaching what she wants and the way she wants has become almost impossible. She selects seven young women who are interested in literature and they meet secretly at her apartment once a week to read Nabakov, Fitzgerald, James, Austin, and other writers. Throughout her book she describes graphically what life is like in Iran, especially for a woman, during and after the reign of Khomeini. She also discusses in depth several writings such as Lolita, The Great Gatsby, Washington Square, Daisy Miller, and Pride and Prejudice. She relates these writings to her life and the lives of the students. In the second part there is a great section where she has her class put The Great Gatsby on trial to see if it should be banned. I have reread Lolita and The Great Gatsby and gained new insights into these novels because of Ms. Nafisi's comments. I intend to read Henry James (I have never read any of his works) and reread Jane Austin's Emma. (I read Emma as a freshman in college and found it completely uninteresting. I hope I have a different experience this time using the information I received from this book.)
I would highly recommend this book because of the description of and insights into life in Iran and also because of the in-depth discussions of the literature her students read.
Monday, April 17, 2006
Post a Comment
<< Home