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.

3. 11/22/63

By:  Stephen King
Rated 5 Stars
Audio Book

I finally finished this book today.  I was 28 years old when Kennedy was murdered and the world that King has described in such wonderful detail is very familiar to me.  1958-1963 was a much kinder and gentler time than now.  It's a trip down memory lane in so many ways and I have been wallowing in it.

Anyway I like time travel books if they are done well and although I am generally not a reader of Stephen King's books I decided to give this one a try.  I am so glad I did.


Library Description:


Jake Epping is a thirty-five-year-old high school English teacher in Lisbon Falls, Maine, who makes extra money teaching adults in the GED program. He receives an essay from one of the students, a gruesome, harrowing first person story about the night fifty years ago when Harry Dunning's father came home and killed his mother, his sister, and his brother with a hammer. Harry escaped with a smashed leg, as evidenced by his crooked walk. Not much later, Jake's friend Al, who runs the local diner, divulges a secret: his storeroom is a portal to 1958. He enlists Jake on an insane, and insanely possible, mission to try to prevent the Kennedy assassination. So begins Jake's new life as George Amberson and his new world of Elvis and JFK, of big American cars and sock hops, of a troubled loner named Lee Harvey Oswald and a beautiful high school librarian named Sadie Dunhill, who becomes the love of Jake's life, a life that transgresses all the normal rules of time.

17. All Clear - Redux

By: Connie Willis
Rated 4.5 stars
Audiobook

There were still some odds and ends that I hadn't really gotten a clear picture of in my first read.  This was an extremely convoluted story line.  I think I have finally gotten a handle on why Colin and Eileen understood at the end of the book how they had met before in time.  Anyway I'm done with this book for a while.  Maybe I will do another re-read in 5 years or so.  If I'm still able to follow such a complicated story when I'm 81.

Here is my original journal entry after I read it last November.

All Clear November 2010