Horse by Geraldine Brooks
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A powerful, and easy to digest book. This is about so many things, not just a horse. This is a book that is right out of the headlines and traces our current problems right back to their beginning. Racism and slavery. The perspective of a slave and his family is so well portrayed that I got tears in my eyes from it at times and anger at others.
You know an author is great when you read about horses and racing, something I have little interest in and it holds your interest. She is a master.
The characters come alive and the plot moves along in not always predictable ways.
Read this book!


View all my reviews

The Care and Management of Lies by Jacqueline Winspear
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I wish this was not a stand alone. I would like to read about these characters and the further exploits. Brilliantly written. It was a pleasure to read and, as Winspear does, it exposed me to a whole lot of wonderful history. Not a boring moment.

View all my reviews

Profiles in Ignorance: How America's Politicians Got Dumb and Dumber by Andy Borowitz
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I have read some of his columns and they are often laugh out loud funny. This book is not funny, well I laughed a lot, it is seriously accurate journalism. It traces the our crappy political situation back to and finds the republican party in a straight trajectory from their past leadership to today. You reap what you sow.
More than I wanted to know about Reagan and Quayle, Andy draws the lines between Joe McCarthy and our current republican leadership.
Borowitz is brilliant. The book makes so many things clear and makes it more difficult to accept republicans as viable in a democracy. It is a party of lunatics with plans.
Don't be afraid of this book unless you are afraid of the truth about republican leadership. Also the book is short, half of it is footnotes that you might feel complelled to look at.

View all my reviews

The Heart of the Serpent: Soviet Science Fiction by Ivan Efremov
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a 1958 Soviet era science fiction. Fascinating mix of science and politics. The story is simple. We meet another race of beings in space.
Most interesting observation was that as technology improves on earth, the next generation of spaceships might beat them to the target and back. In other words, their explorarion expected to take 7 centuries on earth will bring them back to a world that is completely different from the one they left.

View all my reviews

The Paris Affair by Melanie Hudson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I liked it. In fact, I might have loved it. Gave me a different perspective on the war, the French and those sad people who hated Hitler and lived in Germany and Germans. Suffice it to say that this may give you a chance to see the war from a different angle, just as sad, just as horrifying, just different.

View all my reviews

Tomorrowville by David Isaak
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is a very interesting book. Can't wait to read the other books in the series.
Just take today and bring our current insanity to a logical end. The part that is most frightening is that we plant the seeds of our demise and then nurture them until they blossom.
The main characters are pretty easy to understand and the author keeps the story moving along. An easy read but well worth the time.

View all my reviews

Code Name Sapphire by Pam Jenoff
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A pretty good book. Hard to believe until you find out that parts of the story are true. Fantastic escapades in Belgium. Characters are rich and sometimes hard to fathom.
I did not always understand some of the emotional trials that the characters went through. I enjoyed it.

View all my reviews

Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Interesting book. One review describes it as emotional porn. It might be a book where the patients/clients (she's not sure what to call them) are stripped bare and set on a path with new and more appropriate clothing.
This is certainly true for the author, who is one of the characters in the book. I was somewhat amazed at her initial reaction to the breakup. He had obviously signaled earlier that all was not well but in here desire to be in a relationship, she simply lied to herself.
I've never been in therapy. I can't imagine laying my life out to a stranger. That's what I do with my most loved, I tell them how I feel.

View all my reviews

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is a marvelous book. I loved all of it and I was sorry when I finished it. Not that much story but fascinating characters who seem to come to life on the pages. I even liked the intelligent dog and I'm not much of a dog person.
Ah, humanity has missed so much brilliance by keeping women down.That may be the real message here, and it rings true on a regular basis. Discrimination on the basis of sex is the most pervasive and damaging kind of hate. It is hate. It is also fear that there may be a hidden gender superiority in women. Men have fought this forever and still often do.

Enough, the book is fun to read and simply wonderful.

View all my reviews

Not much of a year for reading. I guess other things got in the way. With hours a week to spare, 2023 should be better.

 

Books I’ve Read 2022

 

1. An Observant Wife -Naomi Ragen

2. The Anomaly - Hervé Le Tellier,Adriana Hunter (Goodreads Author) (Translator)

3. Criminal Mischief (Stone Barrington #60) -  Stuart Woods

4. The Every (The Circle #2) - Dave Eggers

5. Project Hail Mary - Andy Weir

6. The Berlin Exchange - Joseph Kanon

7. The Escape Artist by Brad Meltzer

8. The Lightning Rod (Escape Artist #2) - Brad Meltzer

9. A Sunlit Weapon (Maisie Dobbs #17) Jacqueline Winspear 

10. The Wick and The Flame - Hilari T. Cohen

11. A Safe House (Stone Barrington #61) - Stuart Woods

12. The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hill - Robert Dugoni

13. West with Giraffes - Lynda Rutledge

14. Atomic Anna - Rachel Barenbaum

15. Portrait of an Unknown Woman (Gabriel Allon #22) - Daniel Silva

16. The Half Life of Valery K -Natasha Pulley

17. Black Dog (A Stone Barrington Novel Book 62) - Stuart Woods

18. One Two Three - Laurie Frankel

19. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo - Taylor Jenkins Reid

20. This Time Tomorrow - Emma Straub

21. The Black Swan of Paris - Karen Robards

22. The Personal Librarian - Marie Benedict Victoria Christopher Murray 

23. The Boys from Biloxi - John Grisham

24. No Plan B (Jack Reacher #27) - Lee Child

25. The Many Daughters of Afong Moy - Jamie Ford

26. Distant Thunder (Stone Barrington #63)  - Stuart Woods

27. The Many Daughters of Afong Moy - Jamie Ford

28. Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows - Balli Kaur Jaswal

29. Act of Oblivion - Robert Harris

Act of Oblivion by Robert Harris
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A fascinating book from a wonderful author. The story, based on real events and people, comes alive as Harris fills in the details.
Life in the colonies in the mid-1600's is different from the way I learned it in history class A lot went on between Plymouth Rock and the American revolution. This brings that era of our history into much sharper focus. The factionalism, religious bigotry and extremism in the old and new world is beyond imagination. Citizens and leaders were unprepared for their life in the colonies and made enemies of their compatriots and the native peoples.
What a great book. This man is a master storyteller.

View all my reviews

Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows by Balli Kaur Jaswal
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

As much a story of immigrants as it is about erotic stories. I loved it. The characters come alive and you can almost hear them talking. There is so much here and it is presented so beautifully. The delight in their own culture and at the same time their desire to change things.
The desire of these women to share their fantasies and desires helps them to realize that they are not alone, their desires are a normal part of life and loss.
I felt that I got to know the characters and what made them do the things they did. Said another way, the plot was remarkably clear and the story unfolds beautifully.
Bravo, I read this for book club and my opinion went from "Why am I bothering with this book?" to "Wow, that was quite a read!"

View all my reviews