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Breaking night : a memoir of forgiveness, survival, and my journey from homeless to Harvard, by Liz Murray. Wow. I didn’t think anything could be harder to read than Halse Anderson’s “Wintergirls.” This autobiography was well written, even lyrical, and the view so honest– but it is very hard to read at times because it [...]
5. Ash, by Malinda Lo. This is a different take on the Cinderella story. There are many common elements with the well-known fairy tale: Ash, or Aisling, is a happy, contented girl until her mother and, later, her father dies. Her stepmother makes Ash a servant to pay off her father’s debts. Ash serves both the [...]
Flash Burnout, by L.K. Madigan. Blake is 15, with a good homelife, a girlfriend and good circle of friends. Life becomes complicated when one of his friends and fellow photography student, Marissa, needs his help due to her less than stellar home life. Her mother is addicted to Meth and wanders in and out of [...]
A bit behind in my reading this year, only four books so far. Reading a fifth (called “Ash,” a take on the Cinderella story) now. Going Bovine, by Libba Bray — My first book finished for the year. A very interesting read. It’s been compared to a mondern-day Don Quixote, and that’s as good a [...]
Hatter M., by Frank Beddor. I had really been looking forward to this graphic novel spinoff of “Looking Glass Wars” and “Seeing Redd” — which are excellent “alternate fantasies” to “Alice in Wonderland.” This was a bit disappointing. There were some bright spots of dry humor with Hatter M, one of the neatest characters Beddor [...]
Bucking the Sarge, by Christopher Paul Curtis. I listened to this one on CD while my best friend and I were working on various projects. This was one of those “saw it on the shelf, and it looked promising” choices. I had read “Bud, Not Buddy,” and “Elijah of Buxton,” and had enjoyed those. This, [...]
Twilight at the World of Tomorrow, by James Mauro. I really enjoyed this accounting of the 1939 World Fair in New York City. The story behind this extravagant affair seems a good mix of the best and the worst of humanity. It was planned with the best intentions — a place dedicated to peace and [...]
The Last Lecture, by Randy Pausch. Several people had recommended this book, and I finally got around to checking it out of the library. Wow. What an incredible, amazing read. This is a very inspirational, upbeat story. You might not think it, looking at the general synopsis. Basically, Pausch gave this lecture — part of [...]
Zoo Story: Life in the Garden of Captives, by Thomas French. This book is a series of stories, more or less in chronological order, about the Lawry Park Zoo in Tampa, about its zoo keepers, its animal residents and more. French not only does a good job conveying the humanity of the animals in the [...]
1984, by George Orwell. A classic that deserves that overused title. Winston Smith lives in a world where people are monitored constantly, where even thoughts against the status quo and Big Brother can be considered criminal. He begins to question how well things are in his world, and wonders what things were like before the [...]