29. Columbine

 

By:  Dave Cullen
Rated:  4 Stars
Kindle

The best part of the book was how the community managed to take back their school and put the tragic events behind them and create a normal, positive high school experience for the students in the future.  Of course I knew that perfectly well having "watched" so to speak a friend's kid's have just that.  A normal, positive and excellent  high school experience there.


Book Description:

On April 20, 1999, two boys left an indelible stamp on the American psyche. Their goal was simple: to blow up their school, Oklahoma-City style, and to leave "a lasting impression on the world." Their bombs failed, but the ensuing shooting defined a new era of school violence-irrevocably branding every subsequent shooting "another Columbine."


When we think of Columbine, we think of the Trench Coat Mafia; we think of Cassie Bernall, the girl we thought professed her faith before she was shot; and we think of the boy pulling himself out of a school window -- the whole world was watching him. Now, in a riveting piece of journalism nearly ten years in the making, comes the story none of us knew. In this revelatory book, Dave Cullen has delivered a profile of teenage killers that goes to the heart of psychopathology. He lays bare the callous brutality of mastermind Eric Harris, and the quavering, suicidal Dylan Klebold, who went to prom three days earlier and obsessed about love in his journal. 


The result is an astonishing account of two good students with lots of friends, who came to stockpile a basement cache of weapons, to record their raging hatred, and to manipulate every adult who got in their way. They left signs everywhere, described by Cullen with a keen investigative eye and psychological acumen. Drawing on hundreds of interviews, thousands of pages of police files, FBI psychologists, and the boy's tapes and diaries, he gives the first complete account of the Columbine tragedy.

28. What Matters in Jane Austen?

By: John Mullen

Rated 4 Stars

Kindle

This book is full of interesting tidbits, but you do need more than a passing acquaintance with Austen's novels to understand what the author is talking about.  Especially when he is referencing  what characters say to each other.  But for people who are new to reading about the period in history in which Austen's books are set the chapters that address money, mourning, games and social customs  are very helpful. 

Book Description

Release date: January 29, 2013

Which important Austen characters never speak? Is there any sex in Austen? What do the characters call one another, and why? What are the right and wrong ways to propose marriage? In What Matters in Jane Austen?, John Mullan shows that we can best appreciate Austen's brilliance by looking at the intriguing quirks and intricacies of her fiction. Asking and answering some very specific questions about what goes on in her novels, he reveals the inner workings of their greatness.

In twenty short chapters, each of which explores a question prompted by Austens novels, Mullan illuminates the themes that matter most in her beloved fiction. Readers will discover when Austen's characters had their meals and what shops they went to; how vicars got good livings; and how wealth was inherited. What Matters in Jane Austen? illuminates the rituals and conventions of her fictional world in order to reveal her technical virtuosity and daring as a novelist. It uses telling passages from Austen's letters and details from her own life to explain episodes in her novels: readers will find out, for example, what novels she read, how much money she had to live on, and what she saw at the theater.
Written with flair and based on a lifetime's study, What Matters in Jane Austen? will allow readers to appreciate Jane Austen's work in greater depth than ever before.

24. The Queen Mother

By:  William Shawcross

Rated 4 Stars

Audio Book

I was actually looking for a biography of George VI on audible but couldn't find on so I got this one as it was the closest I could get.  I'm beginning to think audible is prejudiced towards male monarchs.

She wasn't really all that special but she brought humanity to the Royal family at a time when they desperately needed it.  She was the right woman at exactly the right place and time.

Publisher's Summary

The official and definitive biography of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother: consort of King George VI, mother of Queen Elizabeth II, grandmother of Prince Charles - and the most beloved British monarch of the 20th century.

Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon - the ninth of the Earl of Strathmore's 10 children - was born on August 4, 1900, and, certainly, no one could have imagined that her long life (she died in 2002) would come to reflect a changing nation over the course of an entire century. Now, William Shawcross - given unrestricted access to the Queen Mother's personal papers, letters, and diaries - gives us a portrait of unprecedented vividness and detail. Here is the girl who helped convalescing soldiers during the First World War...the young Duchess of York helping her reluctant husband assume the throne when his brother abdicated...the Queen refusing to take refuge from the bombing of London, risking her own life to instill courage and hope in others who were living through the Blitz...the dowager Queen - the last Edwardian, the charming survivor of a long-lost era - representing her nation at home and abroad...the matriarch of the Royal Family and "the nation's best-loved grandmother".

A revelatory royal biography that is, as well, a singular history of Britain in the 20th century.

25. That Woman

By:  Ann Sebba
Rated 4 Stars
Audio Book

This book is a cautionary tale if there ever was one.  Be Careful What you Wish For is the message that comes through loud and clear.

Because I have never been particularly interested in gossipy enquirer type articles I had never looked very closely at either the Duke or the Dutchess of Windsor.  But lately I have been doing quite a bit of reading lately about WW2 and several of the books I have read have mentioned that they were both suspected of having pro Nazi sympathies I decided to search out a biography of the Duke.  I didn't find one on audible.com but did find this book.  My goodness, what a to-do!

The conclusion that I came up with is that neither the Duke or the Dutchess had pro Nazi sympathies.  In fact I got the impression that both of them were so self absorbed that it was impossible for them to connect with or even understand any concept beyond their own personal desires at any given moment.  That is not to say the wouldn't has assisted the Nazi cause- but only if they perceived that by doing so they would advance their own interests.

I felt a little sorry for the Duke because if the facts of what happened were represented accurately then a real good argument could be made for him having a developmental disability of some sort.  Perhaps autism.  He really did seem to be unable to understand cause and effect throughout his life.  In the end he got exactly what he pushed so hard for and gave up so much to get and then spent the rest of his life unhappy because he was never able to understand why when he shed all responsibilities all his perks went away as well.  I thought he was honestly bewildered by that.

As for the Dutchess, well I have less sympathy for her.  I don't think she ever wanted Edward "for keeps" but thought she could carry on an affair where she could enjoy royal patronage, snub her nose at Brittain's society types, advance her husbands career and then when Edward inevitably tired of her like he did all the mistresses that came before her go back to her long suffering second husband that she truly loved and her life would go back to normal.  Instead she found herself in way over her head and ended up losing the husband she loved and stuck with an obsessively clingy husband that she didn't love.

The only ones who came out ahead in this mess were the British people who ended up with a much better king at a time when they had enough to deal with without having to put up with a King who displayed all the maturity of judgement of a six year old brat.

Publisher's Summary

Here is the first full-scale biography of Wallis Simpson to be written by a woman, exploring the mind of one of the most glamorous and reviled figures of the 20th century, a character who figured prominently in the blockbuster filmThe King’s Speech.

This is the story of the American divorcée notorious for allegedly seducing a British king off his throne. "That woman", so called by Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, was born Bessie Wallis Warfield in 1896 in Baltimore. Neither beautiful nor brilliant, she endured an impoverished childhood, which fostered in her a burning desire to rise above her circumstances.

Acclaimed biographer Anne Sebba offers an eye-opening account of one of the most talked about women of her generation. It explores the obsessive nature of Simpson’s relationship with Prince Edward, the suggestion that she may have had a disorder of sexual development, and new evidence showing she may never have wanted to marry Edward at all. Since her death, Simpson has become a symbol of female empowerment as well as a style icon. But her psychology remains an enigma.

Drawing from interviews and newly discovered letters, That Woman shines a light on this captivating and complex figure, an object of fascination who has only grown more compelling with the years.

15. My Stroke of Insight

By:  Jill Bolte Taylor, Ph.D.

Rated 4.5 Stars

Paperback

I so wish I could have had this book while my Mother was still alive.  Her brain disease affected the left hemisphere where the author had her stroke and I am seeing my Mother on every page.  I talked to my son about this book this morning about Mother and I know in my heart there is nothing I or anyone could have done to improve her condition but I sure could have understood what she was going through a lot better. I am finding a lot of comfort when the author talks about feeling peaceful detached from the world.  I'm hoping it was that way for my Mother.

Book Description:

On December 10, 1996, Jill Bolte Taylor, a thirty-seven- year-old Harvard-trained brain scientist experienced a massive stroke in the left hemisphere of her brain. As she observed her mind deteriorate to the point that she could not walk, talk, read, write, or recall any of her life-all within four hours-Taylor alternated between the euphoria of the intuitive and kinesthetic right brain, in which she felt a sense of complete well-being and peace, and the logical, sequential left brain, which recognized she was having a stroke and enabled her to seek help before she was completely lost. It would take her eight years to fully recover.

For Taylor, her stroke was a blessing and a revelation. It taught her that by "stepping to the right" of our left brains, we can uncover feelings of well-being that are often sidelined by "brain chatter." Reaching wide audiences through her talk at the Technology, Entertainment, Design (TED) conference and her appearance on Oprah's online Soul Series, Taylor provides a valuable recovery guide for those touched by brain injury and an inspiring testimony that inner peace is accessible to anyone

14. The Romanovs: The Final Chapter

By:  Robert K. Masie
Rated 4 Stars
Audio Book

The first half of this book tells the story of how the remains of the Romanov family was finally discovered after team after team of scientists, amateur archeologists, the KGB and just plain adventurers looking for their 15 minutes of fame spent fortunes and sometimes lifetimes searching for them.

It then goes on to describe the sickening in-fighting between teams of scientists and politicians from any country or region with even the most tenuous claim to have an interest in them indulged fought over the bones.  It was pretty disgusting and I was amazed how people with so much education would stoop so low.  The few scientists who did have integrity were almost buried in the avalanche of mud and had to fight tooth and nail to protect their reputations.  As I said, disgusting.  At the time this book was written the bones of the Romanov family was still laying in a morgue in Moscow while the Government fights over where and how to bury them.  Sad!

The second half of the book was pretty much devoted to Anna Anderson, the Polish peasant woman as she utilmately turned out to be was able to perpetrate such a long running and fairly creditable hoax for so long.  I Her story was very good and I guess it must be pretty easy to convince people who really want to be convinced of almost anything.

Book Description:

In July 1991, nine skeletons were exhumed from a shallow mass grave near Ekaterinburg, Siberia, a few miles from the infamous cellar room where the last tsar and his family had been murdered 73 years before. But were these the bones of the Romanovs? And if these were their remains, where were the bones of the two younger Romanovs supposedly murdered with the rest of the family? Was Anna Anderson, celebrated for more than 60 years in newspapers, books, and film, really Grand Duchess Anastasia? The Romanovs provides the answers, describing in suspenseful detail the dramatic efforts to discover the truth.

Pulitzer Prize winner Robert K. Massie presents a colorful panorama of contemporary characters, illuminating the major scientific dispute between Russian experts and a team of Americans, whose findings, along with those of DNA scientists from Russia, America, and Great Britain, all contributed to solving one of the great mysteries of the 20th century.

13. Prague Winter

A Personal Story of Remembrance and War, 1937-1948

By:  Madeline Albright
Rated: 5 Stars
Hardback and Audiobook

A very good friend recommended this book to me and even loaned me a copy of it because she thought I would like it.  She was right.  I liked it so much I used one of my audible credits to purchase it in audio format.  I am so glad I did because the books was read by Madeline Albright herself.

This book is basically a history of Czechoslovakia during the periods before, during and after WW2.  I found this interesting because the events leading up to both wars and their aftermaths have had a lot of impact on where we find ourselves today.  It's my contention that you cannot fully understand what is happening around you today unless you know what happened yesterday.  That's just my personal take however and probably an excuse to myself for my fascination with conflict when I consider myself to be a pacifist.

By reading the book herself and thereby describing the events in her own voice she transformed the story from being dry history into her story.  Sometimes you could tell by her voice that many of the events she was describing were very painful.  I especially enjoyed the parts relating to her childhood during WWII.  The one thing that I do not understand is why her parents kept so much of her families personal history from their children.  I am sure they had their reasons but still it is hard for me to understand.  I am about seven years younger than Madeline Albright but I still have some very vivid memories of those days.  But I grew up in the oh so safe American mid-west so if I have memories I can imagine that people who lived through those times must have memories vivid enough to evoke some strong emotions.

Publisher's Summary

Before Madeleine Albright turned twelve, her life was shaken by the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia - the country where she was born - the Battle of Britain, the near total destruction of European Jewry, the Allied victory in World War II, the rise of communism, and the onset of the Cold War.

Albright's experiences, and those of her family, provide a lens through which to view the most tumultuous dozen years in modern history. Drawing on her memory, her parents' written reflections, interviews with contemporaries, and newly available documents, Albright recounts a tale that is by turns harrowing and inspiring. Prague Winter is an exploration of the past with timeless dilemmas in mind and, simultaneously, a journey with universal lessons that is intensely personal.

The book takes readers from the Bohemian capital's thousand-year-old castle to the bomb shelters of London, from the desolate prison ghetto of TerezÍn to the highest councils of European and American government. Albright reflects on her discovery of her family's Jewish heritage many decades after the war, on her Czech homeland's tangled history, and on the stark moral choices faced by her parents and their generation. Often relying on eyewitness descriptions, she tells the story of how millions of ordinary citizens were ripped from familiar surroundings and forced into new roles as exiled leaders and freedom fighters, resistance organizers and collaborators, victims and killers. These events of enormous complexity are nevertheless shaped by concepts familiar to any growing child: fear, trust, adaptation, the search for identity, the pressure to conform, the quest for independence, and the difference between right and wrong.

"No one who lived through the years of 1937 to 1948," Albright writes, "was a stranger to profound sadness. Millions of innocents did not survive, and their deaths must never be forgotten. Today we lack the power to reclaim lost lives, but we have a duty to learn all that we can about what happened and why." At once a deeply personal memoir and an incisive work of history, Prague Winter serves as a guide to the future through the lessons of the past - as seen through the eyes of one of the international community's most respected and fascinating figures.

9. Horses Don't Fly

By:  Frederick Libby
Rated: 4 Stars
Kindle

While Fred's experiences as a member of the RAF were interesting they were fairly typical of what most flyers of that time went through.  What I found particularly interesting about this book was his experiences as a child growing up in a motherless household with a loving Father and brother.  His upbringing was without much feminine influence in his life and I think it gave him a rootlessness and recklessness that affected most of the decisions he made as a young man.  After he was in the war for a while he grew up pretty quick.

I didn't realize how easy it was at the time for men to cross the border from the US to Canada and to enlist in the Canadian army.  I knew it had been done but before I read this book I had not idea it had been so easy.  I enjoyed this book.

Publisher's Description:

Growing up on a ranch in Sterling, Colorado, Frederick Libby tamed countless horses, drove cattle, and even roped an antelope. When World War I broke out, he enlisted in the Canadian army with the same happy-go-lucky daring and grit with which he approached all things. In France, he became an aviator with the Royal Flying Corp, downing an enemy plane on his first day of battle over the Somme. He went on to become an ace, with 24 victories to his credit, just two less than Captain Eddie Rickenbacher. This is a rare piece of Americana, told in as pure and compelling a voice from the vernacular heart of this country as you will ever hear.

26. For Fukui's Sake

By:  Sam Baldwin

Rated 5 star
Kindle

This book was a free Kindle download.  I really don't understand the rational amazon uses on making some books available for free but in this case it turned out to be a treasure.

I enjoyed this authors writing and story telling style very much.  I highly recommend this book to all the armchair travelers who, like me, enjoying visiting interesting places with interesting people.  




Unhappily employed in the UK, Sam Baldwin decides to make a big change. Saying sayonara to laboratory life, he takes a job as an English teacher in a small, rural Japanese town that no one – the Japanese included – has ever heard of.

Arriving in Fukui, where there’s ‘little reason to linger’ according to the guidebook, at first he wonders why he left England. But as he slowly settles in to his unfamiliar new home, Sam befriends a colourful cast of locals and begins to discover the secrets of this little known region.

Helped by headmasters, housewives and Himalayan mountain climbers, he immerses himself in a Japan still clutching its pastoral past and uncovers a landscape of lonely lakes, rice fields and lush mountain forests. Joining a master drummer’s taiko class, skiing over paddies and learning how to sharpen samurai swords, along the way Sam encounters farmers, fishermen and foreigners behaving badly.

Exploring Japan’s culture and cuisine, as well as its wild places and wildlife, For Fukui’s Sake is an adventurous, humorous and sometimes poignant insight into the frustrations and fascinations that face an outsider living in small town, backcountry Japan.

22. Singled Out

How Two Million British Women Survived Without Men After The First World War

By:  Virginia Nicholson
Rated:  In Progress
Format:  Paperback


I am still reading this book and it's going to take me a while as I have other books and a quilting project going on.  But from what I've read so far it's going to be a very interesting read.

Book Description:

Publication Date: October 29, 2008
Almost three-quarters of a million British soldiers lost their lives during the First World War, and many more were incapacitated by their wounds, leaving behind a generation of women who, raised to see marriage as "the crown and joy of woman's life," suddenly discovered that they were left without an escort to life's great feast.
Drawing upon a wealth of moving memoirs, Singled Out tells the inspiring stories of these women: the student weeping for a lost world as the Armistice bells pealed, the socialite who dedicated her life to resurrecting the ancient past after her soldier love was killed, the Bradford mill girl whose campaign to better the lot of the "War spinsters" was to make her a public figure--and many others who, deprived of their traditional roles, reinvented themselves into something better. Tracing their fates, Nicholson shows that these women did indeed harbor secret sadness, and many of them yearned for the comforts forever denied them--physical intimacy, the closeness of a loving relationship, and children. Some just endured, but others challenged the conventions, fought the system, and found fulfillment outside of marriage. From the mill-girl turned activist to the debutante turned archeologist, from the first woman stockbroker to the "business girls" and the Miss Jean Brodies, this book memorializes a generation of young women who were forced, by four of the bloodiest years in human history, to stop depending on men for their income, their identity, and their future happiness. Indeed, Singled Out pays homage to this remarkable generation of women who, changed by war, in turn would change society.

21. No End Save Victory

Perspectives on World War II

By:  Stpehen E. Ambrose, Caleb Carr, John Keegam, William Manchester
Rated:  In Progress
Format:  Paperback
From:  My Friend Connie

I am still slowly reading this book.  It's wonderful

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 2002

Robert Cowley and the editors of Military History Quarterly present a fascinating anthology of World War II essays from some of the world's most eminent historians. 

20. Tolkien and the Great War

by John Garth
 Rated 4 Stars
 Audio Book

Tolkien and the Great War: The Threshold of Middle-earth" by John Garth is not a full-scale biography of Tolkien, it is rather an examination of his experiences during World War One and the influence of those experiences upon the development of his writing and concepts behind Middle Earth.

 I thought this book was very interesting.  But while I am a huge Lord of the Rings fan I never got into any of his other books.  I tried the Similarian once but I'm just not enough of a fantasy reader to get into it.   I think that I found a lot to interest me in this book because I was not being required to actually really read any of his other stuff but got more of an overview.  Kind of an abridged version of a Readers Digest condensed book.

It was also interesting to me to see how his writing  evolved.  I  found it fascinating to follow him and his coterie of friends from boyhood through The Great War. Tolkien's relationships with a close-knit group of school-friends known as the "TCBS" -- The Tea Club and Barrovian Society, originating as a cluster of like-minded youths at King Edward's School in Birmingham, youths with lofty artistic ambitions and a belief that destiny would indeed carry them to artistic heights.

But Lord, for a group that was founded on humor and snappy repartee these young men certainly ended up taking themselves seriously.  But then WWI was pretty serious.

So to sum up my total reaction - While liked this book and I greatly admire him and his work, I will never be tempted to try to read any other of his books.

12. Omar Nelson Bradley, General at War

By:  Jim DeFelice
Rated 5 Stars
Kindle Book


I was drawn to read this because he was from Moberly, Missouri a small midwestern town where my Grandparents lived in the years before my Grandmother died and where a lot of my relatives still live.  He was a principled man who reflected the values I was raised to believe instead of the "family values" that currently are in vogue.  Kind of comforting.

Book Description

Publication Date: September 12, 2011

In the years since World War II, military historians have focused on two larger-than-life personalities: George S. Patton and Dwight D. Eisenhower. But what of Omar Bradley, the American hero who led the forces at D-Day and was the head of the largest body of U.S. soldiers to serve under one field command? Picked by Patton to be his deputy during World War II, Bradley rose to become Patton’s commander. He was known as the “soldier’s general” for his compassion toward his troops, and he eventually became the first Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff as well as an advisor to several presidents. Yet despite these achievements, Bradley has been largely overlooked by biographers. In his intriguing new book, Omar Bradley, award-winning author Jim DeFelice brings an American hero to life with a comprehensive and compelling biography about one of the most important—and overlooked—generals of World War II.

10. Watergate; A Novel

By:  Thomas Mallon
Rated:  Rated 4.5 Stars
Audio Book

I read about this book in bookgirls Diary Contemporary Fiction Views "Watergate"

She gave it a pretty good review.  Good enough that it made me want to read it for myself.  At the time The Watergate Hearings were going on and televised I was one of those rare periods of my life when I had lots of time.  We were getting ready to move overseas and I had taken the summer of 1974 off to pack and play. So I stayed glued to the television set because truthfully it all played like a soap opera to me.  I would even take notes so that I could keep my husband up to date.  I was very politically naive back in those days.  I still have a very vivid picture in my mind of us sitting at a picnic bench in the Canadian Rockies listening a portable radio to the announcement that Nixon had resigned .

But on to the book.  First off, it's a re-telling, written from various points of view. To quote bookgirl in her  Diary on KOS " I did look at the reviews on amazon and they are pretty mixed over there.  I really think that this is one of those books that while it's a pretty good read, you really had to "be there" to fully appreciate it.  bookgirl also complains that the author has made the story into a farce.   Well folks, that's exactly what it was.  Watching the hearings from May until August 1973 that was exactly what I felt like I was watching.  That's why it felt so much like a soap opera.  At one point it seemed to me that the conspirators were all running around acting like Keystone Cops.  I don't see how the author could have made it into more of a farce than it actually was.  What idiots we elect!  And STILL ARE!!!!!!!!!!!

I did like the authors explanation of how the 18 1/2 minute gap on the tape happened

Book Description

Publication Date: February 21, 2012

From one of our most esteemed historical novelists, a remarkable retelling of the Watergate scandal, as seen through a kaleidoscope of its colorful perpetrators and investigators.

For all the monumental documentation that Watergate generated—uncountable volumes of committee records, court transcripts, and memoirs—it falls at last to a novelist to perform the work of inference (and invention) that allows us to solve some of the scandal’s greatest mysteries (who did erase those eighteen-and-a-half minutes of tape?) and to see this gaudy American catastrophe in its human entirety.

In Watergate, Thomas Mallon conveys the drama and high comedy of the Nixon presidency through the urgent perspectives of seven characters we only thought we knew before now, moving readers from the private cabins of Camp David to the klieg lights of the Senate Caucus Room, from the District of Columbia jail to the Dupont Circle mansion of Theodore Roosevelt’s sharp-tongued ninety-year-old daughter (“The clock is dick-dick-dicking”), and into the hive of the Watergate complex itself, home not only to the Democratic National Committee but also to the president’s attorney general, his recklessly loyal secretary, and the shadowy man from Mississippi who pays out hush money to the burglars.

Praised by Christopher Hitchens for his “splendid evocation of Washington,” Mallon achieves with Watergate a scope and historical intimacy that surpasses even what he attained in his previous novels, as he turns a “third-rate burglary” into a tumultuous, first-rate entertainment.

9. In a Sunburned Country

By Bill Bryson
Rated 5 Stars
Kindle Format

I recently became very curious about Australia after reading a book about Australian Pioneer Women.  And for me, who better to turn to than Bill Bryson who is my very favorite travel writer in the world.  In fact, I admire him so much as a writer that I am making plans to be just like him in my next life.  I have, unfortunately, left it a little late for this one. ;)

But the description below is right about it being a dangerous place.  Australia is one tough country. Aside from having one of  some of the most inhospitable terrain on the planet it also has an awful lot of scary critters running around loose.

The upside is that if the people I know from that part of the world are typical then some of the nicest people in the world live there.  Australia, New Zealand (They Have Hobbits!) and Tasmania are high on my places to visit in my next life.

What, they don't really have Hobbits?  Darn!!!

Book Description

Publication Date: May 15, 2001

Every time Bill Bryson walks out the door, memorable travel literature threatens to break out. His previous excursion along the Appalachian Trail resulted in the sublime national bestseller A Walk in the Woods. In A Sunburned Countryis his report on what he found in an entirely different place: Australia, the country that doubles as a continent, and a place with the friendliest inhabitants, the hottest, driest weather, and the most peculiar and lethal wildlife to be found on the planet. The result is a deliciously funny, fact-filled, and adventurous performance by a writer who combines humor, wonder, and unflagging curiousity.

Despite the fact that Australia harbors more things that can kill you in extremely nasty ways than anywhere else, including sharks, crocodiles, snakes, even riptides and deserts, Bill Bryson adores the place, and he takes his readers on a rollicking ride far beyond that beaten tourist path. Wherever he goes he finds Australians who are cheerful, extroverted, and unfailingly obliging, and these beaming products of land with clean, safe cities, cold beer, and constant sunshine fill the pages of this wonderful book. Australia is an immense and fortunate land, and it has found in Bill Bryson its perfect guide.

---

7. Great Pioneer Women of the Outback

By: Suzanna De Vris
Rated 5 Star
Audio Book

While browsing through a book list the other day I noticed this book "Great Pioneer Women of the Outback," and because I now know a few people from this part of the world I thought I would give it a try. I have read my fair share of books featuring our American pioneer women riding west in covered wagons, fighting off indians, living in sod houses and fighting off spiders, enduring dust storms, etc. etc.

But while I have the greatest respect for them and their ability to endure hardships I think that at the end of the day their lives were much easier than the lives of the women who braved the Australian Outback. What really stunned me about Australia was the sheer size of the place.  If you whacked off Alaska Australia is bigger than the US and our Southwest could be tucked away neatly into a corner of your outback.

It's now obvious to me that this is a very interesting country that I would like to know more about.  And because I am a person who likes to learn things the easy way I am off to the library to find Bill Bryson's book "In a Sunburned Country"  In my next life I am going to be a travel writer and be able to write just like him.  That will be OK because he will be off doing something else leaving the field clear for me. :) I would like to add that I ended the book very angry about the way Georgiana Molloy (1805-1843) was treated during her life time by . . . . well . . . . by the men in her life.  It's reading about women like her that has given me definite feminist tendencies.

Publisher's Summary:

From the 1800's to the onset of World War I, pioneers making their homes in outback Australia were joined by their wives, many of whom had no idea of the difficulties and dangers ahead. These women encountered conditions which would test their resilience and resourcefulness to the utmost: relentless heat, dust and isolation; hostile wildlife; no medical facilities; and never-ending, backbreaking work. Great Pioneer Women of the Outback profiles 10 female pioneers, from Jeannie Gunn, author of We of the Never Never, to equally remarkable but lesser known women, such as Emma Withnell in Western Australia and Evelyn Maunsell in Queensland. Building on the women's records and her own knowledge of Australian history, Susanna de Vries documents the grit and determination it took to build what many today would consider an extraordinary life.

1. World War II On The Air

By:  Mark Bernstien
Rated 5 Stars
Paperback
From:  Connie

 I was only 6 years old when the US entered the war and 10 when it ended.  I have some memories of these years but they are only vignettes and naturally are from a child's perspective so I find these WW2 books very interesting.  So much was happening in the world and the most I remember about it are sugar and shoe rationing and how chaotic Union Station in St. Louis Mo. was when I went with my Grandmother once to meet one of my uncles who was coming home on leave from the Navy.

But really, Lucky Me to have been so little effected by it when some many tragic things were happening in other places in the world.  Reading this book and listening to he live broadcasts on the CD that accompanied this book really brought that home to me.  A real Count Your Blessings moment.
 
Book Description:

The story of World War II was told first not by historians, but by reporters. And no one told that story with more impact than Edward R. Murrow and the remarkable band of reporters he assembled. World War II on the Air recounts the dramatic stories behind these extraordinary correspondents. And it lets you hear their actual broadcasts, culled from the archives and collected here-many for the first time-on audio CD, narrated by Dan Rather.

68. Zen For Beginners

By Judith Blackstone and Zoran Josipovic
Rated 4 Stars
Format:  Borrowed Book

This book is a quick, broad and quirky introduction to a complex issue.  A friend recommended this book to me and even went so far as to loan me his copy.  I like it.  It's not particularly something I am prepared at this time of my life to take very seriously, but I do find the book interesting and frankly it has a lot to recommend it.


Book Description:

Zen from its foundation in China of the 6th Century AD, has always been more than a religion. It is an intriguing system of principles and practice designed to give each individual the experience of eternity in a split second, the knowledge of divinity in every living thing. To create a book about Zen, however, is risky. It is one thing to describe the factual history of this exotic strain of Buddhism. It’s quite another to successfully convey the crazy wisdom of the Zen masters, their zany sense of their uncanny ability to pass on the experience of enlightenment to their students. The authors of Zen For Beginners have clearly overcome these considerable risks. The books uses an engaging mix of clear, informative writing and delightful illustrations to document the story of Zen from its impact on Chinese and Japanese culture to its influence on American writers such as Japanese culture to its influence on American writers such as Ginsberg and Kerouac.

61. The Secret Life of Pronouns : what our words say about us

By:  By James W. Pennebaker
Rated 3.5 Stars
From:  Library
Format:  book

This book is interesting but dry.  Very dry. I am pretty much a word geek and I love words and language although you couldn't tell it from my own writing. But then I don't presume to be a writer, just a commenter. I would have been a lot happier with this book  if the author had written it in a more interesting style.  As it was it was just a dry statement of facts.  It's the kind of book you would read for information only and not a book I, at any rate, would read for pleasure.

Product Description:

Draws on groundbreaking research in computational linguistics to explain what language choices reveal about feelings, self-concept, and social intelligence, in a lighthearted treatise that also explores the language personalities of famous individuals.

Discovering the secret life of the most forgettable words -- Ignoring the content, celebrating the style -- The words of sex, age, and power -- Personality : finding the person within -- Emotion detection -- Lying words -- The language of status, power, and leadership -- The language of love -- Seeing groups, companies, and communities through their words -- Word sleuthing -- Appendix: a handy guide for spotting and interpreting function words in the wild.

60. Why do Bad Things Happen to Good People

By:  Harold Kushner
Rated 2 Stars
From:  Library
Format:  Book

I am giving this book 2 Stars instead on the 1 that it deserves simply I really did read the whole thing.  I did so because I really couldn't believe the author was really writing this stuff and kept reading on to see if he would get his head out of La-La land and come back to earth.

I have a very good friend to whom very bad things are happening right now and I am having a hard time understanding why such a bad thing has happened to such a fine person.  A friend recommend this book to help me understand, why we have had so many bad things happen to us, even though we are good people. It's obvious he didn't really read it, but only went by the title of the book. You could easily loose your faith and hope reading this book. I don't recommend it at all!! Page 67 says God does not cause bad things to happen and also, he is unable to stop bad things from happening. He states that all the supernatural events and miracles of the Bible are just stories to make God look good.

And this statement is outrageous: "Are you capable of forgiving and loving God even when you have found out that He is not perfect, even when He has let you down and disappointed you by permitting bad luck and sickness and cruelty in His world, and permitting some of those things to happen to you? Can you learn to love and forgive Him despite His limitations ...?

Give. Me. A. Break!   What's the point in being God if you're not really a God!  God's gotta do better than that if I'm going to be a believer.  Might as well believe in The Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Product Description:


When Harold Kushner’s three-year-old son was diagnosed with a degenerative disease and that he would only live until his early teens, he was faced with one of life’s most difficult questions: Why, God? Years later, Rabbi Kushner wrote this straightforward, elegant contemplation of the doubts and fears that arise when tragedy strikes. Kushner shares his wisdom as a rabbi, a parent, a reader, and a human being. Often imitated but never superseded, When Bad Things Happen to Good People is a classic that offers clear thinking and consolation in times of sorrow.

Since its original publication in 1981, When Bad Things Happen to Good People has brought solace and hope to millions of readers and its author has become a nationally known spiritual leader.