To Kill a Mockingbird

By Harper Lee
Rated: 5 Stars!!!!!!
Audio book
Narrated by: Sissy Spacek

This book was a re-read for me.  I read it several years ago and like most of the rest of the world I loved it.  I have been checking from to to time to see if audible had added it to their catalog and finally it showed up.

I purchased it the day it became available and immediately listened to it straight through and it was magic.  Sissy Spacek's narration is pure genius.  It transforms what was already one of the best books I had ever read and manages to add even more dimensions to it.  I grew up in small towns in the South and was a little girl very much like Scout.  I was transported straight back into my childhood.  I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

In Falling Snow

By: Mary Rose MacColl

Rated: 5 Stars

Audiobook

This month marks the 100th anniversary of World War One, also known as The Great War. The early 20th century is my favorite period of history and some very notable books have been set in this time period. This book is probably going on my list of best reads in 2014. 

Falling Snow is a beautifully written book that focusses on the lives of some very strong women, both in the past and the present. It's also a very poignant book as there was nothing about that war that wasn't sad. But it is also a very uplifting book about accomplishments, love, secrets, sorrows and survival both in the past and the present.

My only quibble with the book is that it switched back and forth between the past and the future. That's always a problem with me but if the book is good enough I don't groan too loud.

Publisher's Summary

A best-selling Australian writer's American debut and a heart-wrenching novel of World War I.

Iris Crane's tranquil life is shattered when a letter summons memories from her bittersweet past: her first love, her best friend, and the tragedy that changed everything. Iris, a young Australian nurse, travels to France during World War I to bring home her 15-year-old brother, who ran away to enlist. But in Paris she meets the charismatic Dr. Frances Ivens, who convinces Iris to help establish a field hospital in the old abbey at Royaumont, staffed entirely by women - a decision that will change her life.

Seamlessly interwoven is the story of Grace, Iris' granddaughter in 1970s Australia. Together their narratives paint a portrait of the changing role of women in medicine and the powerful legacy of love.

The Care and Management of Lies: A Novel of the Great War

By Jacqueline Winspeare
Rated 3 1/3 Stars
Audiobook

This book didn't work nearly as well for me as Winspeare's Masie Dobbs series does.   It was OK I guess but sadly I found it very predictable. I would not recommend it unless you knew nothing about that era and wanted the history lesson.  As always Winspeare does a great job with the atmosphere of that time but there is really nothing driving this book as far as story. I knew in the first chapter how it was going to end.

What I did enjoy about the book was her portrait of life on a small Kentish farm.  I also enjoyed the way Kezia, the wife who ran the farm and kept the home fires burning while her husband went off to war.  She painted lovely word pictures in her letters to him of imaginary meals that she was cooking for them as if he was there with her.  I thought that was a lovely  way to convey a feeling of comfort and a connection to home.  I thought that was cleverly done by the author although the recipes did wander out into left field from time to time.

I did not care for the ending. It ended too abruptly.  I know that Happy Ever Afters were thin on the ground at the end of WW1 but I'm not a reader who needs stark reality all the time.  A little fantasy can be a good thing sometimes.

Hong Kong

By Jan Morris
Rated: 3 Stars
Audiobook

I am a big fan of travel books and if this were 1995 and if I was planning to travel to Hong Kong I would have found this book invaluable.  It's an interesting and well written snap shot of Hong Kong during the 1980's with a brief mentions here and there of what happened in the past as background information for what is happening at the present.  All from a British POV.  But as reader looking for a comprehensive history of Hong Kong this book falls short.   

What this book does is give to give the reader a sense of what colonial Hong Kong was like for the British which is almost exactly what it was like for the British in India.  They created their own self absorbed little bubble everywhere they went and life outside that bubble only existed as it related to them. Interesting but no surprises for the reader there. 

Where this book falls sadly short is examine the part the Chinese played.  The Chinese made up 96% of the population, but are described repeatedly as a mysterious, superstitious mass.  Energetic and hard working but whose motives and culture were unfathomable to the westerner.

When I finished this book I had more questions than I had when I began and I'm off to find a real history of Hong Kong.  One that includes the years after 1997 to now.  

Escape to New Zealand - Page Two

Just For Now - Book Three

By Rosalind James
Rated 4 Stars
Audio Book

The thing I like about this author is that each of the heroines is so different from one another.  Unlike Hannah who has built a successful business career and Kate the feisty sporty type, Jena is a much softer kind of woman who enjoys homemaking.

Book Description

Publication Date: February 14, 2014

There’s no place like home ...

For teacher Jenna McKnight, nothing spells “heartbreak” like finding her husband with somebody else--in her bed. It’s clearly time to reinvent herself. A new body, a new city, and a new job later, she’s done just that. The beautiful Auckland villa isn’t really her home, though. Finn Douglas and his kids aren’t really her family, however much she wishes they were. And playing house can be a dangerous game.

Rugby star Finn Douglas is just looking for a temporary nanny and housekeeper. Not a girlfriend, and definitely not a wife. He can’t resist Jenna’s cooking, it’s true. Who knew he’d have so much trouble resisting her? He wants to do what’s right for his kids. But waiting is so hard ... 

Just For Fun - Book Four

Rated 4 1/2 Stars

Audible

I liked Emma and Nic.  The are the kind of people one likes to spend time with.  

Book Description

Publication Date: December 6, 2012

What happens in Fiji stays in Fiji ... except when it doesn't.

Nic Wilkinson is a responsible, organized, disciplined rugby player at the top of his game. Emma Martens is a sometimes-scattered, often-emotional, and always-broke would-be designer with a big chip on her shoulder where Nic’s concerned.

They have no history together, except one perfect week. Nothing in common anymore, except the most important thing of all.

Getting together again would be messy. Complicated. Scary. And, just maybe, worth every risk. 

Escape to New Zealand Series - Page One

Just this once - Book One 

 By:  Rosalind James
Audio Books
Rated 5 Stars

I loved this book.  It has everything I like going for it.  For starters it's set in New Zealand, a location I new little to nothing about.  The main male character is a rugby player and sport I really did know nothing about and it's a well written, interesting story about characters that I liked.  What more can you ask for in a book.

Book Description

Publication Date: August 29, 2012

Everyone needs to be rescued sometimes.

Everyone but Hannah Montgomery, that is. She just needs a vacation. Three weeks in New Zealand to sort out her life, figure out what she wants, seems just right. Oh, and to relax. She should definitely put that on the agenda. She certainly isn't looking for a sexy fling with a professional rugby player, no matter how attractive he is. Hannah doesn't do casual. But maybe just this once ...

As much as he's shared with Hannah, Drew Callahan has kept one very big secret. And learning the truth, now that she's back home again, has made Hannah warier than ever. Drew knows that she's right for him. But how can he convince her to let down her guard enough to explore what they could have together?

Just Good Friends - Book 2

Rated 4 1/2 Stars
Audio Book

This book was a slow starter for me. At first I didn't think I was going to like it as much as I did the other one.  I had a hard time warming up to the characters.   But as the book progressed Koti turned out to have a lot more going for him than I first thought.  He was actually a pretty smart, sweet guy with a witty sense of humor.  It's just that his good looks kept everyone, including this reader from getting that at first.  As for Kate, well once you began to understand out exactly what she had been through it got a lot easier to put up with her snakiness.

Book Description

Publication Date: August 30, 2012

Some bets were made to be lost.

Kate Lamonica isn’t Koti James’s type. Too small. Too dark. And heaps too much work. So it’s an easy bet that he can be her friend for six weeks without making a move on her, no matter what his mates would have said.

Kate can’t believe she’s made the bet at all. New Zealand had seemed like the perfect escape from the stalker who’d threatened first her peace of mind, and then her life. She certainly doesn’t need any more trouble. Why on earth has she agreed to spend time with a Maori rugby player who’s far too handsome and charming for his own good—and knows it?

But there’s more than one game Koti’s good at playing ... 

War and Peace 1977 BBC Movie

Story by:  Leo Tolstoy
Movie by BBC 1972
Rated 5++++++
15 hours long

I watched this on U-Tube and I finished it this morning.  I meant to watch it in slow stages but by episode 8 the story had such a grip on my attention that I just had to finish.

I am so grateful to my Friend Connie for mentioning the W&P movies in Bookflurries.  It just never occurred to me before that there was a movie.  How stupid is that?

It really bothered me that I hadn't been able to finish the book.  It went beyond W&P its self and into a more personal feeling of failure.  Now I can comfort myself by thinking the medium was to blame not the story.  I can see now how being in Pierre's stream of consiousness would chase me right out of the book.  I loved him as a character, and Anthony Hopkins did a wonderful job of playing him, but any more of his philosophizing than was in the movie would have put me to sleep. All of the casting in this movie was just brilliant.

Anyway, thanks for the nudge Connie.  It felt good to finally check W&P off  my to-do list.

War and Peace: Tolstoy novel to be adapted for BBC One

• War and Peace is a television dramatization of the Leo Tolstoy novel of War and Peace. This 20 episode series began on 28 September 1972. The BBC dramatisation of Tolstoy's epic story of love and loss set against the backdrop of the Napoleonic Wars. Anthony Hopkins heads the cast as the soul-searching Pierre Bezukhov, Morag Hood is the impulsive and beautiful Natasha Rostova, Alan Dobie is the dour, heroic Andrei Bolkonsky and David Swift is Napoleon, whose decision to invade Russia in 1812 has far-reaching consequences for Pierre and the Rostov and Bolkonsky families.

31. The Boy's in the Boat

By: Daniel James Brown
Rated 5 Stars
Audible

This is one of the two really outstanding non fiction books I read recently.  I come from generations of farmers and I grew up listening to "how bad things were during the Depression"  But this is a book about more than just a story about overcoming hard times but about what we are made of and what we can accomplish if we really make up our minds to do it.

Publisher's Summary

For readers of Laura Hillenbrand's Seabiscuit and Unbroken, the dramatic story of the American rowing team that stunned the world at Hitler's 1936 Berlin Olympics.

Daniel James Brown's robust book tells the story of the University of Washington's 1936 eight-oar crew and their epic quest for an Olympic gold medal, a team that transformed the sport and grabbed the attention of millions of Americans. The sons of loggers, shipyard workers, and farmers, the boys defeated elite rivals first from eastern and British universities and finally the German crew rowing for Adolf Hitler in the Olympic games in Berlin, 1936.

The emotional heart of the story lies with one rower, Joe Rantz, a teenager without family or prospects, who rows not for glory, but to regain his shattered self-regard and to find a place he can call home. The crew is assembled by an enigmatic coach and mentored by a visionary, eccentric British boat builder, but it is their trust in each other that makes them a victorious team. They remind the country of what can be done when everyone quite literally pulls together - a perfect melding of commitment, determination, and optimism.

Drawing on the boys' own diaries and journals, their photos and memories of a once-in-a-lifetime shared dream, The Boys in the Boat is an irresistible story about beating the odds and finding hope in the most desperate of times - the improbable, intimate story of nine working-class boys from the American west who, in the depths of the Great Depression, showed the world what true grit really meant. It will appeal to readers of Erik Larson, Timothy Egan, James Bradley, and David Halberstam's The Amateurs.

America and Americans and Selected Nonfiction

By:  John Steinbeck
Rated 5 Stars
Audible

I haven't read many books lately but the few I had have been very enjoyable.  I have been diligently working on my quilt and listening while I read.

I bought America and Americans because 1) I like John Steinbeck's writing, 2) I wasn't aware he had written any  non-fiction, 3) it was written in an era that particularly interests me and 4) there are a bunch of snobby reviews on amazon about it that infer it would be over the head of any but the most  discerning readers.  

I am probably one of the most non discerning of readers but could never resist a challenge.  Beside Steinbeck was writing about my "times."  I miss the America I grew up in. 

The country and our society have changed dramatically in the years since the date it was published that it probably really does feel dated some young readers but for me it provides a picture of the times when I was young, and tells of the values of the time that I grew up in. Not all of them were laudable but at least I did not feel like an alien which I often do now days.  Every once in a while I look at my little black dog and remind him "Hobbs, we're definitely not in America any more."

Publisher's Summary

More than three decades after his death, John Steinbeck remains one of the nation's most beloved authors. Yet few know of his career as a journalist who covered world events from the Great Depression to Vietnam. Now, this original collection offers a portrait of the artist as citizen, deeply engaged in the world around him. In addition to the complete text of Steinbeck's last published book, America and Americans, this volume brings together for the first time more than 50 of Steinbeck's finest essays and jouralistic pieces.

Between the Lines Series

By Tammara Webber
Audio Books

This series follows the lives of a group of Hollywood actors who meet during the filming a remake of Jane Austen's classic novel Pride and Prejudice into a modern day version called School Pride. During the course of this series the readers follows the cast members as they film the movie, party, cope with constant media attention and paparazzi, fall into and out of love and cope with revelations from the past.  

All four of the books in this series are very well written and it held my interest all the way from book 1 through book 4.  And the very best part for me is that there are no explicit sex scenes I have to fast forward through.  The book is plenty steamy but the author is smart enough and skilled enough that when her characters climbed into bed they were making love not hooking up. Except for Reid of course, because he really was a bad boy until he . . . .  Oh, sorry - no spoilers allowed here.   Anyway, this author really is very good and I will continue to buy as many of her books she cares to write.

Between The Lines is Book 1 of this series and I'm giving it a 5 star rating. This book has two narrators.  Reid Alexander, Hollywood heart throb and bad boy and Emma Pierce an up and coming young actress.  Most of the main and some of the secondary characters are introduced in this book which covers the actual filming of the movie.

Where You Are is Book Two and my least favorite of the series.  But I am still giving it a 4 Star rating because a) it isn't the books fault I didn't like it as much as the others; and b) because it sets up the story for much of  the rest of the series.  This book has four narraters, Reid, Emma, Graham and Brooke.  Reid and Brooke are scheming, Graham and Emma are trying to build a relationship.

Good For You, Book 3 in the story is where Reid gets his comeuppance. It's narrated by Reid and Dory.  Dory is introduced in this book and is my absolute least favorite character in the series.  If you read the reviews for this book you will discover that a lot of people like her.  But she is just way to goody-goody for me.

Here Without You, Book 4 in the series is where Reid gets his act together, Brooke completely redeems herself, and Dory comes out way better than she deserves.

So that's it.  I don't think I've written a single spoiler *phew*  This was a fun series to read.  I highly recommend it.

34. The Mine

By:  John A. Heldt
Rated 4 stars
Kindle

I enjoy time travel books.  I also enjoy a well written romance novel.  Happily this is both. 

I liked the fact that he only transported his character back to 1941, an era which I am at least familiar with as I was 6 years old in that year.  My memories of what life was like in 1941 are a tad bit fuzzy and are from the pov of a child but there was a good bit that came across as familiar to me. Right off I had a kind of coming back to a familiar place. I realize this makes me a little unique among readers. 


I also liked that the main character did not blunder around but recognized immediately what had happened to him and immediately set about figuring out how to cope with his drastic change of circumstances.

None of the characters are larger than life.  Well maybe Joel was a tad bit too resourceful but he was a man in a very tricky situation so I forgave him.  All of the characters felt real and were likable.  In other words these were all people that you felt could easily been real and furthermore were people I would have liked.  

And lastly I found it refreshing that the author did not introduce a villain to add tension to the story but let the story create it's own tension.  There were a couple of baddies but they were strictly background and only served to set the story in motion and then they faded away.

Publishers Description:

In 2000, Joel Smith is a cocky, adventurous young man who sees the world as his playground. But when the college senior, days from graduation, enters an abandoned Montana mine, he discovers the price of reckless curiosity. He emerges in May 1941 with a cell phone he can't use, money he can't spend, and little but his wits to guide his way. Stuck in the age of Whirlaway, swing dancing, and a peacetime draft, Joel begins a new life as the nation drifts toward war. With the help of his 21-year-old trailblazing grandmother and her friends, he finds his place in a world he knew only from movies and books. But when an opportunity comes to return to the present, Joel must decide whether to leave his new love in the past or choose a course that will alter their lives forever. THE MINE follows a humbled man through a critical time in history as he adjusts to new surroundings and wrestles with the knowledge of things to come.

33. Where She Went

By:  Gayle Foreman
Rated 3 srars
Audiobook

I purchased this audiobook the minute I saw it was out and available on audio. It is a sequel to "If I Stay" and I am sorry to have to say that I was disappointed with it.  I loved "If I Stay" but this one just didn't have the charm and poignancy the first book had.  It felt flat - especially when compared to it predecessor.  Still I'm glad I bought it because I really wanted to know "Where She Went."

 Publisher's Summary:

 It's been three years since the devastating accident... three years since Mia walked out of Adam's life forever. Now living on opposite coasts, Mia is Juilliard's rising star and Adam is L.A. tabloid fodder, thanks to his new rock-star status and celebrity girlfriend. When Adam gets stuck in New York by himself, chance brings the couple together again, for one last night. As they explore the city that has become Mia's home, Adam and Mia revisit the past and open their hearts to the future - and each other Told from Adam's point of view in the spare, lyrical prose that defined If I Stay, Where She Went explores the devastation of grief, the promise of new hope, and the flame of rekindled romance.