Carry On

Rated 4 Stars
Format:  Audio Book
Genre:  Fantasy

Normally this is not a genre I usually read but I had read and enjoyed Rowell's Fan Girl so I was delighted when I discovered that she had written Carry On.  But while this book is a spin off of Fan Girl  it stands alone.  It's not necessary to read Fan Girl first but it does help.  I loved being able to picture Cath hunched over her laptop diligently writing this book.

Audible Description:

Simon Snow is the worst Chosen One who's ever been chosen.

That's what his roommate, Baz, says. And Baz might be evil and a vampire and a complete git, but he's probably right.

Half the time, Simon can't even make his wand work, and the other half, he starts something on fire. His mentor's avoiding him, his girlfriend broke up with him, and there's a magic-eating monster running around, wearing Simon's face. Baz would be having a field day with all this, if he were here--it's their last year at the Watford School of Magicks, and Simon's infuriating nemesis didn't even bother to show up.

Carry On - The Rise and Fall of Simon Snow is a ghost story, a love story and a mystery. It has just as much kissing and talking as you'd expect from a Rainbow Rowell story - but far, far more monsters.

Journey to Munich: A Maisie Dobbs Novel

• Written by: Jacqueline Winspear
• Narrated by: Orlagh Cassidy
• Length: 9 hrs and 18 mins 
• • Series: Maisie Dobbs, Book 12
• Unabridged Audiobook
• Rated 4 Stars

 

I love the Maisie Dobbs books. One of the hallmarks with her books is the beautiful way the can put her readers in the exact place and time in which her novels are set.   I could feel the darkness of that time as if it were a malevolent fog settling over Europe.  The author didn't need to go into with all the horrible details.  As on reviewer put it  "You could feel the fear."

I can never say that anyone of Winspeare's book is the best one yet because I always think that about every one of them when I first read it.  But I can say that this one did not disappoint.  Maisie grows with each book both as a person and as also as an investigator. 

Publisher's Summary

Working with the British Secret Service on an undercover mission, Maisie Dobbs is sent to Hitler's Germany in this thrilling tale of danger and intrigue - the 12th novel in Jacqueline Winspear's New York Times best-selling "series that seems to get better with each entry" (The Wall Street Journal).

All About Emily

By Connie Willis
Rated 4.5 Stars
Format:  Hard Cover
Genre:  Fantasy

A friend very kindly sent this book to me and I really appreciate it.  As much as I like Connie Willis's books I wouldn't have paid $4.99 for a 96 page Novella let alone $7.19 for a hard cover.

But I really enjoyed this story and the ending left me smiling and just a little puzzled.

Amazon Book Description

Theater legend Claire Havilland fears she might be entering the Sunset Boulevard phase of her career. That is, until her manager arranges a media appearance with her biggest fan--a famous artificial intelligence pioneer's teenage niece. After precocious Emily's backstage visit, Claire decides she's in a different classic film altogether. While unnaturally charming Emily swears she harbors no desire for the spotlight, Claire wonders if she hasn't met her very own Eve Harrington from All About Eve. But the story becomes more complex as dreams of fame give way to concerns about choice, free will, and identity.

With this long, 17,000 word novelette, acclaimed author Connie Willis combines the glamour of old Hollywood and the eternal allure of Broadway to explore the cutting edge robotics of a richly-imagined near future.

Fan Girl

By:  Rainbow Rowell
Rated 4.5 Stars
Genre:  Romance/Coming of Age
Format: Audible


Fangirl is about a young girl venturing into college and leaving the side of her twin for the first time. 

Starting college with out your twin sister whom you have always shared a room with is a big change. Cath, shy, nerdy and socially awkward has always depended on her outgoing sister for her social life and for years she has immersed herself in an on-line community consisting of the fans of a best selling series of books whose main character is Simon Snow. But college is changing everything for Cath. Her sister wants a hard partying college experience and no longer wants to room with her.  Cath has been writing nearly famous fan-fiction based on the Simon Snow characters for years. With her life seemingly falling apart, fan-fiction is her only escape from the torment of her reality.  But as the year progresses, Cath slowly comes to realize that new experiences, although scary at times, can also be rewarding. 

At first the Simon Snow/Twilight similarities bothered me but by the end of the book that element had stopped setting my teeth on edge. The author, quite cleverly I thought, gently introduced Cath's fan faction by working excerpts from "Carry On Simon" into the story. 

Audible Book Description
In Rainbow Rowell's Fangirl, Cath is a Simon Snow fan. Okay, the whole world is a Simon Snow fan, but for Cath, being a fan is her life--and she's really good at it. She and her twin sister, Wren, ensconced themselves in the Simon Snow series when they were just kids; it's what got them through their mother leaving.

Reading. Rereading. Hanging out in Simon Snow forums, writing Simon Snow fan fiction, dressing up like the characters for every movie premiere.

Cath's sister has mostly grown away from fandom, but Cath can't let go. She doesn't want to.
Now that they're going to college, Wren has told Cath she doesn't want to be roommates. Cath is on her own, completely outside of her comfort zone. She's got a surly roommate with a char
ming, always-around boyfriend, a fiction-writing professor who thinks fan fiction is the end of the civilized world, a handsome classmate who only wants to talk about words . . . And she can't stop worrying about her dad, who's loving and fragile and has never really been alone.

For Cath, the question is: Can she do this?

Can she make it without Wren holding her hand? Is she ready to start living her own life? Writing her own stories?

And does she even want to move on if it means leaving Simon Snow behind?

Him

By Sarina Bowen and Elle Kennedy
Rated 4 Stars
Aubio Format
Genre M/M Romance


M/M books are a genre that is new for me.  I am way to old to spend money so that I can pant over a book that has steamy scenes that I don't get.  But Sarina and Elle write such strong stories peopled with great secondary characters that their books insist that I read them because I can always just skip past the scenes that make me uncomfortable.  I've been doing that to Nora Robert"s books for years. :)

Last year I stumbled across Sarina Bowen's Understatement of the Year and just like that - I'm not afraid of the M/M genre anymore.

Purloined from Amazon's product page:

They don't play for the same team. Or do they?  

Jamie Canning has never been able to figure out how he lost his closest friend. Four years ago, his tattooed, wise-cracking, rule-breaking roommate cut him off without an explanation. So what if things got a little weird on the last night of hockey camp the summer they were eighteen? It was just a little drunken foolishness. Nobody died.

Ryan Wesley's biggest regret is coaxing his very straight friend into a bet that pushed the boundaries of their relationship. Now, with their college teams set to face off at the national championship, he'll finally get a chance to apologize. But all it takes is one look at his longtime crush, and the ache is stronger than ever.

Jamie has waited a long time for answers, but walks away with only more questions--
can one night of sex ruin a friendship? If not, how about six more weeks of it? When Wesley turns up to coach alongside Jamie for one more hot summer at camp, Jamie has a few things to discover about his old friend...and a big one to learn about himself. 

US

By Sarina Bowen and Elle Kennedy
Rated 4 Stars
Kindle Format
Genre M/M Romance

This book is a continuation of their book HIM.  I would have been very disappointed had Sarina and Elle not decided to tell how the story of how Jamie and Wes worked out.


Purloined from Amazon's product page:

Can your favorite hockey players finish their first season together undefeated? 

Five months in, NHL forward Ryan Wesley is having a record-breaking rookie season. He’s living his dream of playing pro hockey and coming home every night to the man he loves—Jamie Canning, his longtime best friend turned boyfriend. There’s just one problem: the most important relationship of his life is one he needs to keep hidden, or else face a media storm that will eclipse his success on the ice. Jamie loves Wes. He really, truly does. But hiding sucks. It’s not the life Jamie envisioned for himself, and the strain of keeping their secret is taking its toll. It doesn’t help that his new job isn’t going as smoothly as he’d hoped, but he knows he can power through it as long as he has Wes. At least apartment 10B is their retreat, where they can always be themselves. Or can they? When Wes’s nosiest teammate moves in upstairs, the threads of their carefully woven lie begin to unravel.
 With the outside world determined to take its best shot at them, can Wes and Jamie develop major-league relationship skills on the fly?  Warning: contains sexual situations, a vibrating chair, long-distance sexytimes and proof that hockey players look hot in any shade of green.

The Road to Little Dribbling: Adventures of an American in Britain

By:  Bill Bryson
Rated 4 Stars
Kindle
Narrated by:  Nathan Osgood

I love travel books and Bill Bryson is my gold standard.  I buy his books as soon as I'm aware a new one has been released.  For a very long time I have been purchasing them in audio format because listening to Bill Bryson read his book adds an element that professional narrators, no matter how good,  just can't achieve.

For that reason I have only rated this book four stars.  I was very disappointed that the author was not reading this himself.  I should have just purchased this in Kindle format.

But the book itself was, as usual, very good. I really love his use of language and it's is a great sequel to Notes from a Small Island.  I so wish I was still able to travel because he mentions so many places I would love to visit in person.

Publisher's Summary

The hilarious and loving sequel to a hilarious and loving classic of travel writing: Notes from a Small Island, Bill Bryson's valentine to his adopted country of England. 

In 1995, Bill Bryson got into his car and took a weeks-long farewell motoring trip about England before moving his family back to the United States. The book about that trip, Notes from a Small Island, is uproarious and endlessly endearing, one of the most acute and affectionate portrayals of England in all its glorious eccentricity ever written. Two decades later, he set out again to rediscover that country, and the result is The Road to Little Dribbling. Nothing is funnier than Bill Bryson on the road; prepare for the total joy and multiple episodes of unseemly laughter. 

The Mother Tongue

• Written by: Bill Bryson
• Narrated by: Stephen McLaughlin
• Length: 10 hrs and 44 mins 
• Unabridged Audiobook
• Rated 5 Stars

I have always love Bill Bryson use of language and his sense of humor.  I learn far more listening to his books than I do listening to some of the more academically presented lectures to be found on audible.

Publisher's Description:

With dazzling wit and astonishing insight, Bill Bryson - the acclaimed author of The Lost Continent - brilliantly explores the remarkable history, eccentricities, resilience, and sheer fun of the English language. From the first descent of the larynx into the throat (why you can talk but your dog can't) to the fine lost art of swearing, Bryson tells the fascinating, often uproarious story of an inadequate, second-rate tongue of peasants that developed into one of the world's largest growth industries.

A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal

• Written by: Ben Macintyre, Narrated by:John Le Carré
• Length: 11 hrs,  Unabridged Audiobook

Rated:  4 

This book kept me listening far into the night. I never did get a feeling for what made this guy tick. I just can't imagine being able to  maintain the kind of facade necessary to pull off a deception on this scale.  What did he think he was doing?  I finally came to the conclusion that he was just hooked on thrill of being able to hoodwink so many people.  He couldn't have given any thought to how many lives he ruined.  I don't think he could have lived with himself if he had.

Publisher's Summary

Master storyteller Ben Macintyre's most ambitious work to date offers a powerful new angle on the 20th century's greatest spy story.

Kim Philby was the greatest spy in history, a brilliant and charming man who rose to head Britain's counterintelligence against the Soviet Union during the height of the Cold War - while he was secretly working for the enemy. And nobody thought he knew Philby like Nicholas Elliott, Philby's best friend and fellow officer in MI6. The two men had gone to the same schools, belonged to the same exclusive clubs, grown close through the crucible of wartime intelligence work and long nights of drink and revelry. It was madness for one to think the other might be a communist spy, bent on subverting Western values and the power of the free world. 

But Philby was secretly betraying his friend. Every word Elliott breathed to Philby was transmitted back to Moscow - and not just Elliott's words, for in America, Philby had made another powerful friend: James Jesus Angleton, the crafty, paranoid head of CIA counterintelligence. Angleton's and Elliott's unwitting disclosures helped Philby sink almost every important Anglo-American spy operation for twenty years, leading countless operatives to their doom. Even as the web of suspicion closed around him, and Philby was driven to greater lies to protect his cover, his two friends never abandoned him - until it was too late. The stunning truth of his betrayal would have devastating consequences on the two men who thought they knew him best, and on the intelligence services he left crippled in his wake.

A Mother's Reckoning

By Sue Klebold

Rated 4 Stars

Kindle Format

This is one of the saddest books I've ever read.  It's been more than seventeen years since this tragedy and when I saw that Sue Klebold had written a book I bought it hoping to read that the parents of the young men who had perpetrated this terrible crime had been able to put their lives back together and move on.  

Sue Klebold's book is a well written, heartbreakingly honest and introspective account of the step by step process of she and her husband went through in attempting deal with the horrible reality that their  son had viciously killed others and then himself  

I don't think anyone will ever really know why those boys did what they did.  I just feel so very sorry for everyone whose lives they destroyed or damaged.

Publisher's Summary

On April 20, 1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold walked into Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. Over the course of minutes, they would kill 12 students and a teacher and wound 24 others before taking their own lives. 

For the last 16 years, Sue Klebold, Dylan's mother, has lived with the indescribable grief and shame of that day. How could her child, the promising young man she had loved and raised, be responsible for such horror? And how, as his mother, had she not known something was wrong? Were there subtle signs she had missed? What, if anything, could she have done differently? 

These are questions that Klebold has grappled with every day since the Columbine tragedy. In A Mother's Reckoning, she chronicles with unflinching honesty her journey as a mother trying to come to terms with the incomprehensible. In the hope that the insights and understanding she has gained may help other families recognize when a child is in distress, she tells her story in full, drawing upon her personal journals, the videos and writings that Dylan left behind, and countless interviews with mental health experts. 

Filled with hard-won wisdom and compassion, A Mother's Reckoning is a powerful and haunting book that sheds light on one of the most pressing issues of our time. And with fresh wounds from the recent Newtown and Charleston shootings, never has the need for understanding been more urgent.

Death Clouds on Mt. Baldy

By:  Cathy Hufault
Rated 5 Stars
Non-fiction
Kindle Format


This book recounts a tragic hike by a group of six Boy Scouts gone tragically wrong.  The author Cathy Hufault, sister of one of the surviving scouts, authored this comprehensive account of those 19 days in the fall of 1958, following a record-breaking blizzard that came out of nowhere and took the young adventurers by surprise.

I was living at Ft. Huachuca, AZ when this happened and I remember it very well.  Hundreds of people turned out to search in terrible weather conditions to try to find these boys. It broke everyone's heart when it became apparent that the outcome was not going to be a good one.

Links:

Trailer for book on youtube

mp3 Exploring the story behind the deaths of three Boy Scouts near Tucson in 1958

Book Description:

This haunting historical adventure drama relays harrowing accounts of rescue, survival, bravery and tragic loss. It was the largest search and rescue operation in Arizona history. On November 15,1958 an unpredicted record breaking arctic-like blizzard roars out of nowhere across the mild desert terrain of southern Arizona. Three little boys are feared caught out in the open, perhaps buried under the three to seven feet of snowfall in the mountains. Cowboys ram through snow up to their horses’ necks, hikers push through monster snowdrifts, and helicopters hover at dangerous altitudes in their struggle to find the boys before they die. Re-live the courage, true-grit and anguish on the trail.

Carry the Ocean (The Roosevelt Book 1)

By Heidi Cullinan
Rated 5+ Stars
Kindle book
Genre:  M/M Romance
# of books read 2016 - 1

This is the second book written in a genre I never thought I would read. But it was highly recommended and then the cover reminded me so much of my Great Grandson Austin that of course I had to read it. I am very glad that I did.  It made me even prouder of him than I already was.  It's a profoundly moving story and should be required for the entire human race.

Book description on amazon:

Normal is just a setting on the dryer.

The Roosevelt, Book 1

High school graduate Jeremey Samson is looking forward to burying his head under the covers and sleeping until it’s time to leave for college. Then a tornado named Emmet Washington enters his life. The double major in math and computer science is handsome, forward, wicked smart, interested in dating Jeremey—and he’s autistic.

But Jeremey doesn’t judge him for that. He’s too busy judging himself, as are his parents, who don’t believe in things like clinical depression. When his untreated illness reaches a critical breaking point, Emmet is the white knight who rescues him and brings him along as a roommate to The Roosevelt, a quirky new assisted living facility nearby.

As Jeremey finds his feet at The Roosevelt, Emmet slowly begins to believe he can be loved for the man he is behind the autism. But before he can trust enough to fall head over heels, he must trust his own conviction that friendship is a healing force, and love can overcome any obstacle.

Resolutions for 2016

 I have not been doing a good job of keeping this Journal up to date so am promising myself to do a better job in 2016.

On The Island

Rated 5 Stars
Kindle

I'm giving this book my highest rating because the author kept it real for me all the way through.

At the very beginning I was a little squicked by the ages of the characters because you absolutely knew where the relationship was headed but then I suddenly remembered some very good friends who have the same age difference where she is 13 years older than he is and they have a wonderful marriage and grandchildren even so who cares how old other people are. In the grand scheme of things it doesn't matter a fig.

I was a little surprised at how long it took for the characters to develop the relationship but I guess the author did that to keep the relationship above board. Personally I think that in the real world it would have happened a lot sooner for comfort as well as passion.

But I really liked the story. Their struggle for survival, how much they both had to pull together and draw on inner strength neither knew they were capable of made an exciting story for me. And then the difficulties they had adjusting to going back to civilization after so long rang really true for me.

So yeah, I recommend this book.

Publisher's Description:

Two people stranded on an island struggle to survive—and slowly fall in love—in the runaway New York Times bestseller from the author of the forthcoming novel COVET.

Anna Emerson is a thirty-year-old English teacher desperately in need of adventure. Worn down by the cold Chicago winters and a relationship that’s going nowhere, she jumps at the chance to spend the summer on a tropical island tutoring sixteen-year-old T.J.

T.J. Callahan has no desire to go anywhere. His cancer is in remission and he wants to get back to his normal life. But his parents are insisting he spend the summer in the Maldives catching up on all the school he missed last year.

Anna and T.J. board a private plane headed to the Callahan’s summer home, and as they fly over the Maldives’ twelve hundred islands, the unthinkable happens. Their plane crashes in shark-infested waters. They make it to shore, but soon discover that they’re stranded on an uninhabited island.

At first, their only thought is survival. But as the days turn to weeks, and then months, the castaways encounter plenty of other obstacles, including violent tropical storms, the many dangers lurking in the sea, and the possibility that T.J.’s cancer could return. As T.J. celebrates yet another birthday on the island, Anna begins to wonder if the biggest challenge of all might be living with a boy who is gradually becoming a man.

November 9

Rated 3 Stars
Audiobook


But then all of Colleen Hoover's stories are good. They are just so angsty that I end up depressed even while I'm enjoying it. I know that doesn't make much sense but that's exactly what happens to me in most of her books. This book desperately needed some lighter moments to allow the reader to catch their breath and recover a little from time to time.

The story was pretty much saved from only being two stars by Zachary Webber's narration. He really is good. Angela Goethal's narration just plays on all that angst and makes the whole thing worse. Don't get me wrong, a little angst is a good thing, more than a little can even be exciting as it keeps you on the edge of your chair, but too much leaves me feeling like I've been drowned in a wave of heartbreak.

But for readers with a higher tolerance for gloom and doom it's a very good story.

The Martian

Rated 4 stars
Kindle Format

I am very much a so-so reader when it comes to the SI/FI genre.  I usually fall  into  love with them or are bored to tears by them.  This booked fell into the I Liked It category

There were a lot of technical details in it and not being a science geek most of them flew right over my head.  But the story was interesting so I just took the science stuff on trust and skimmed over what was to me the boring bits. Also having the image of Matt Damon in my head as Mark Whately helped as I have really liked him ever since I watched all the Bourne movies.

Amazon Description:

Six days ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first people to walk on Mars. 

Now, he's sure he'll be the first person to die there.

After a dust storm nearly kills him and forces his crew to evacuate while thinking him dead, Mark finds himself stranded and completely alone with no way to even signal Earth that he’s alive—and even if he could get word out, his supplies would be gone long before a rescue could arrive. 

Chances are, though, he won't have time to starve to death. The damaged machinery, unforgiving environment, or plain-old "human error" are much more likely to kill him first. 

But Mark isn't ready to give up yet. Drawing on his ingenuity, his engineering skills—and a relentless, dogged refusal to quit—he steadfastly confronts one seemingly insurmountable obstacle after the next. Will his resourcefulness be enough to overcome the impossible odds against him?

J.R.R. Tolkien: A Life Inspired

Rated 4 Stary
Biography
Kindle
Some of what Tolkien wrote is incomprehensible to me but I did love The Hobbitt and The Lord of the Ring trilogy.  I was curious about the man and this biography took care of that.  
Amazon Book Description:


John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was Professor of Anglo-Saxon (Old English) at the University of Oxford. His research on Beowulf is still considered a standard in the field. Tolkien, however, unlike most Oxford dons, stepped out of his role as professor to create popular literature. 

Tolkien’s best-known writings were The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, in which he created a fully realized world known as Middle-earth, vaguely identifiable as Northern Europe in a pre-history that never was. To bring his world to life, he produced detailed geography and cartography as well as a legendary background. He peopled the world with diverse types of inhabitants and created spoken and written languages for them. By doing this, he essentially created modern fantasy literature and a standard for subsequent writers to chase and miss. A British poll at the end of the twentieth century named The Lord of the Rings the most important English-language work of that century.

During his lifetime, Tolkien did not appreciate people focusing on him rather than on his writings. He felt that his writings were more worthy of attention. With apologies to the late gentleman, he is now due some notice.

The Fifteenth Minute

Rated 5 Stars
Kindle format

Sarina Bowen's books rarely disappoint.  This book is another one of her cautionary tales wrapped up in such a well written story with an entertaining plot that you don't realize you've been cautioned until you have finished it and had  a chance to think about it.


Amazon Book Description

Freshman Lianne Challice is known to millions of fans as Princess Vindi. But sometimes a silver screen sorceress just wants to hang up her wand, tell her manager to shove it, and become a normal college student. Too bad that’s harder than it looks. 

She’s never lived a normal life. She hasn’t been to school since kindergarten. And getting close to anyone is just too risky — the last boy she kissed sold the story to a British tabloid. 

But she can’t resist trying to get close to Daniel "DJ" Trevi, the hot, broody guy who spins tunes for hockey games in the arena. Something's haunting his dark eyes, and she needs to know more. 

DJ's genius is for expressing the mood of the crowd with a ten second song snippet. With just a click and a fade, he can spread hope, pathos or elation among six thousand screaming fans. 

Too bad his college career is about to experience the same quick fade-out as one of his songs. He can't get close to Lianne, and he can't tell her why. And the fact that she seems to like him at all? Incredible.

How to Listen to and Understand Great Music

By:  Professor Robert Greenberg
Format:  Audio
Length: 36 hours
Cost 1 audible credit = $11.00

This was one fantastic audiobook! This is part of the the Great Courses lecture series and if you order it through Great Courses it would cost about $300. However, if you order it through Audible.com, it costs one credit, which is about $11.00. the only difference is that you don't receive the written course material, which might have come in handy on occasion but is not necessary to enjoy this incredible experience.

So what is this great experience? It is nothing short of a 48 lecture course on, exactly as promised, how to listen to great music! Each lecture is 45 minutes, so that adds up to about 40 hours of listening time... quite a commitment. Robert Greenberg is a music professor who seems like the type of person that if you met him at party you would feel like you knew him your whole life. His enthusiasm for music is contagious. He is a great story teller and has a way of describing music in such a way that "it sticks". 

Like most great teachers, he tells you what he is going to teach, teaches it, then summarizes what he just taught. As he frequently says, music is a mirror of the time, so he adds historical insight into the description of the music. He doesn't try to cover everything, that would be impossible, but takes a longitudinal approach, beginning with the ancient world and quickly moves forward to the baroque,classical and romantic period. In the process he defines musical vocabulary that conductors, composers and music producers seem to think we all understand but don't. In the process he not only clarifies our ability to perceive what the composer's intent was in the creation of the music, but also helps us to understand their brilliance in making complexity seem so simple. 

The 30 Greatest Orchestral Works

• Written by: The Great Courses
• Narrated by: Professor Robert Greenberg
• Rated 4.5 Stars
• Length: 24 hrs and 52 mins 
• • Series: The Great Courses: Fine Arts & Music
• Format:  Lecture

The course covers the major eras and stylistic periods in Western music from the early 18th- to the mid-20th centuries and highlights a wide range of European and American works. Among these: Haydn's Symphony no. 104, Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring, and Shostakovich's Symphony no. 5.