books lately 25/50

I’ve lost count on where I am with my 50 book goal. Logically, I could just count, but I kind of like not knowing where I’m at right now. Eliminates the pressure and all that.
Before I go to sleep by S.J. Watson. I read a description of this somewhere and thought I might like it. A few days later, I was perusing my own bookshelf and found this. Apparently I own it and wasn’t even aware. John keeps accusing me of owning too many books. Pssssh. Description from goodreads:
As I sleep, my mind will erase everything I did today. I will wake up tomorrow as I did this morning. Thinking I’m still a child, thinking I have a whole lifetime of choice ahead of me…
Memories define us. So what if you lost yours every time you went to sleep? Your name, your identity, your past, even the people you love–all forgotten overnight. And the one person you trust may only be telling you half the story.
Welcome to Christine’s life.
I liked this book enough. Enjoyable, easy to read, and I didn’t quite see the big surprise coming. There was a vague notion something wasn’t right pinging around my brain, but I couldn’t quite catch it to make it concrete.
*
The Postmistress by Sarah Blake. I don’t know if I loved this book, as I thought a few of the characters were really frustrating. The local town doctor loses a woman who dies in childbirth birthing her fifth baby in as many years. He’s a new doctor and didn’t quite catch all the signs that she was in distress until too late. She died, the baby lived. NOBODY in town blamed him for what happened, yet he went down a path of self-destruction leading to him to travel to war torn London during the Blitzkrieg to save Londoners. What?! He left his young, new wife back in New England who eventually finds out she’s pregnant. The postmistress is kind of portrayed as a control freak who things she can organize the world by keeping her own post office running smoothly. Eventually she starts hiding mail from some town citizens to keep some bad news from trickling in, which again makes no sense. She doesn’t know anyone in town well, as she’s new, and takes her job way too seriously to begin with; its not realistic that she’d ruin her reputation by messing with mail delivery. Whatever. Another book I own[ed], which I picked up for $2 at a used book store.
What would happen if someone did the unthinkable-and didn’t deliver a letter? Filled with stunning parallels to today, The Postmistress is a sweeping novel about the loss of innocence of two extraordinary women-and of two countries torn apart by war.

The casual vacancy* by JK Rowling.
No, just no. The byline for this is ‘A big novel about a small town.’ In reality its ‘A long novel about a town nobody cares about.’
When Barry Fairbrother dies in his early forties, the town of Pagford is left in shock.
Pagford is, seemingly, an English idyll, with a cobbled market square and an ancient abbey, but what lies behind the pretty façade is a town at war.
Rich at war with poor, teenagers at war with their parents, wives at war with their husbands, teachers at war with their pupils … Pagford is not what it first seems.
And the empty seat left by Barry on the parish council soon becomes the catalyst for the biggest war the town has yet seen. Who will triumph in an election fraught with passion, duplicity and unexpected revelations?

The orchid house* by Lucinda Riley
So much love for this and I even bought an orchid after I read it.
As a child Julia Forrester spent many idyllic hours in the hothouse of Wharton Park, the great house where her grandfather tended exotic orchids. Years later, while struggling with overwhelming grief over the death of her husband and young child, she returns to the tranquility of the estate. There she reunites with Kit Crawford, heir to the estate and her possible salvation.
When they discover an old diary, Julia seeks out her grandmother to learn the truth behind a love affair that almost destroyed Wharton Park. Their search takes them back to the 1930s when a former heir to Wharton Park married his young society bride on the eve of World War II. When the two lovers are cruelly separated, the impact will be felt on generations to come.
Lucinda Riley skillfully sweeps her readers between the magical world of Wharton Park and Thailand during World War II with irresistible and atmospheric storytelling. Filled with twists and turns, passions and lies, and ultimately redemption, The Orchid House is a romantic, poignant novel that became an instant bestseller in the UK and Germany.
Follow you home by Mark Edwards
I loved this book, probably in part because I had very little expectations for it. I noticed on Amazon that I could “borrow” it for free, so I did, and finished it in less than a day. A day that I had to work. I got sucked into it, and couldn’t put it down. From goodreads…
It was supposed to be the trip of a lifetime, a final adventure before settling down.
After a perfect start, Daniel and Laura’s travels end abruptly when they are thrown off a night train in the middle of nowhere. To find their way back to civilisation, they must hike along the tracks through a forest…a haunting journey that ends in unimaginable terror.
Back in London, Daniel and Laura vow never to talk about what they saw that night. But as they try to fit back into their old lives, it becomes clear that their nightmare is just beginning…

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5/50 books in 2015.

Mr. Penumbra’s 24 hour bookstore: I read this off a recommendation of my friend Allison, who raved that it was one of her favorite books ever. I really wasn’t into it. I actually started it last fall, but put it down when my Kindle said I was 60% done. I finally picked it up again to finish it. I’m glad I did, but I was still left unimpressed with it. Clay, recently unemployed and desperate, applies to be the night clerk at a 24 hr bookstore in San Francisco. While the bookstore has no regular customers, it does have a string of late night people who visit the lending section of the vertical books, taking books written entirely in code. Although warned to not open these books, he does, and gets curious about the whole project. Thus begins a largely unrealistic journey in which Clay, his new girlfriend who is a hotshot at Google, and his best friend, a wealthy software developer, travel across the country to the HQ of the secret society whose members produce these coded books. The premise is interesting, books hiding the secret to immortality, but somehow it just doesn’t fit together well.

Dad is fat. I like Jim Gaffigan, the stand-up comedian, but I don’t know about Jim Gaffigan the author. The book started off slow, and then got funnier as it progressed. I’m not sure which came first, this book or some of his shows, but sections of the book I’ve seen verbatim in some of his shows. Not that it wasn’t hilarious when seen, but reading it after the fact was less entertaining. I do love his perspectives on parenting, toddlers Catholicism. Background: he’s an Irish Catholic with 5 kids (and counting), who’s raising his family in a 2 bedroom apartment in NYC. All of his kids have been born at home. He’s fantastic.

One last thing before I go. Funny funny and really easy to read. Silver gets diagnosed with a heart condition and finds out his only child, his 18 year daughter is pregnant. The whole book happens within a week. Silver can have surgery to fix his heart, which will be performed by his ex-wife’s soon to be new husband, but he chooses to wait, driving everyone crazy. Silver is a washed up former music star, deadbeat dad and ex-husband who is living in a tiny apartment in a building filled with other struggling men. It’s a cute story of how people get stuck in a pattern of life and have a hard time getting out. My single complaint is that it reads really similarly to *This is where I leave you * another funny book (and now a movie) by the same author.

Wild This was my favorite of the five; the autobiographical book of Cheryl Strayed as she traverses the Pacific Crest Trail. Cheryl lost her mom in her early twenties and really struggled to survive it. She cheated multiple times on her husband, eventually got divorced, and decided to walk to the PCT for therapy. I hope if similar events ever happen to me, I made the badass decision to walk through CA and OR to recover. The book was intriguing, interesting, and a fast read.

Where angels fear to tread I finished Room with a view by EM Forester and loved it. This is his first one, and after I found it for $2 at a used bookstore, I knew I had to read it. Naughty British woman marrying a man outside her social class in heathen filled Italy that resulted in a baby boy. Her late husband’s family is furious attempt to get the boy back. For a classic book written in the time period is was written in, it’s a bit scandalous. I didn’t enjoy it as much as Room with a view but it was still a good read.
Currently reading: Watership Down, Girl from Junchow, and a manuscript written by a coworker’s wife that she’s trying to publish.