Books, Books, Books

In the last year I have read a lot but I have not read to many books.  That's because probably about half of my reading time this year was committed to two books. I wish to offer my book reviews for the following books that I have read.  Feel free to call me a narcissist for thinking my opinion on these books matter :)

1.  "Team  of Rivals" by Doris Kearns Goodwin.  If you only
read one book in your life I highly recommend you making this book that one.  (That's saying something coming from the biggest Harry Potter fan EVER).  I have always loved Abraham Lincoln.  This book puts into words why that's the case.  Lincoln basically took the men who ran for the Republican Presidential ticket and placed them in his cabinet because he saw that these men represented the differing voices within the hodge podge that made up the Republican party at the time.  This book shows the true character of this man and has helped to shape my view of what kind of man should be in the White House.




2.  Les Miserables" by Victor Hugo.  This has been on my to read book list for as long as I can remember.  Motivated by the up and coming movie release of the musical version of the story with the lovely Hugh Jackman, I finally buckled down and read the darn thing.  Let me tell you, that book is a BEAST to get through, 1200 pages of teeny tiny print.  It took me about 4 months to finally read.  I hate books with sad endings.  But this book, for some reason there was something beautiful about the way it ended.  I had to go listen to some happy music to keep myself from crying (couldn't let Tommy catch me crying from another book, he still laughs about how the Hunger Games affected me).  I don't LOVE the ending when I think about it, but for some reason I would hate the book had it ended any other way.  I'm strangely at peace with the whole thing.  Any book that moves me to emotion, even with all the long drawn out explanations that were totally unnecessary, is impressive to me.  I will be honest, I may have started skipping over the 12 page descriptions of Paris's revolution that happened ten years after the setting of the book (why that was in there I still don't really get), or the whole chapter about the history of Paris's sewer system.  I really don't care about the evolution of the transportation of poop in ANY city.  Nothing will ever change my mind about it.  So if you decide to ever take on that book, I don't blame you if you were to do the same.

3. "Blind Side" by Michael Lewis.  I just finished this book and I loved it for two reasons.  One, reading about economics is the worst.  Reading about it through an example of how it works is awesome and makes me appreciate the importance of economics and how it plays into almost every decision we make.  Two, I'm so tired of hearing people complain about how Christian morality is ancient history, racism is an ever prevalent evil that all whites embrace and practice, and rich people are all about bettering themselves with no thought or care for the welfare of others and this book destroys all of those claims.  It's such a positive and inspirational story. A rich, christian, white family helps to provide a home and life for a child who had literally nothing, with no other thought than it was the right thing to do.  I love Michael Ohers' character.  One of his family members said about him that "Michael held no ill will towards anyone." He clearly had had a rough childhood and yet he blamed no one.  I love that the book includes all the people (Black, white, poor, middle class, rich) in his life who fought to make his life better for him, even when he couldn't see the possibilities for himself. It's such a positive message in a world full of cynicism. There are people who care. 

4. Matched" By Allie Condie.  I normally never leave a book unfinished.  But this one I just found myself dreading having to continue it.  It's a disutopia book, which I have only liked one of the 5 that I have read (Hunger games of course) so that might be part of the problem.  I kept thinking, "I can finish this and then it will all be over" but knowing there are 2 other books I'd have to push through I decided to call it quits.  It's not a bad story.  It's just kind of slow moving and I found the main character not weak, but not strong.  I love Katniss's strength in the hunger games.  One reason I don't like disutopia books is the main character's development is very slow and very gradual and it takes forever for them to get the courage to do something.  (Also, the fact that they all end bad with no hope for the future is quite the deterrent for me).  This isn't an awful book, I just found myself not caring one way or the other what happened.  Maybe I just needed to keep reading.



5. "Boomerang" by Michael Lewis.  This is about how certain countries' cultural influences affect their money spending decisions that led up to the financial crisis.  It's a short book and pretty funny entertaining but make sure you have a finance genius near by to ask a billion questions.  I had a conversation with someone at the begin of the chapter on Iceland because I got 2 pages in and didn't comprehend half of what I read. And then I had another conversation with someone else at the end of the Iceland chapter.  I started the second conversation with, "Okay so I'm reading this book and just got finished with what happened with Iceland.  So it's not that I don't know what happened to Iceland...but...well no, what happened to Iceland?" But I've been trying to figure out in Lamen's terms what happened in 2008, since 2008.  So it's time to get started.  Plus, I've found Michael Lewis to be a really good writer