A Year of Reading

A Year of Reading

2017 is over and this year I read 114 books. Of course, there were others, not listed here, that I read parts of but didn't finish. There were many books that I rated 4/5, and certainly quite a few that rated 1/5 and even a few zeros!

Following is a list of the books that rated 4/5 or 5/5.

The Woefield Poultry Collective
by Susan Juby

Hidden Figures
By Margot Lee Shetterly

Lucky Boy
By Shanthi Sekeran 

In the Shadow of Alabama
By Judy Reene Singer

When Breath Becomes Air
By Paul Kalanithi

Dewey: The Small Town Library Cat Who Touched the World
By Vicki Myron

Small Great Things
By Jodi Picoult

#114 The Almost Sisters

The Almost Sisters
By Joshilyn Jackson

Chic lit once again. Two step-sisters, rivals in childhood and life. Leia's grandmother gets sick, and she goes south to help her. Turns out, there are literally skeletons in the closet, or in this case, a skeleton in a trunk. Grandmother has a degenerative disease and is lucid only some of the time. Her lifelong friend is her caretaker.

Turns out, gramma, Birchie, killed her own father many years ago, and she put his body in a trunk where it has been for 70 years. Hettie, it turns out, is actually Birchie's half sister as Birchie's father had a long-standing sexual liaison with Hettie's mother, at that time, she was the family's black servant.

Rating: 3.5/5
Recommendation: A decent read. A few surprises along the way.

#113 Their Finest

Their Finest
By Lissa Evans

Well, I read this book in dribs and drabs, but still, there was a lot of discontinuity written into the book as well. The novel is set in WWII London and revolves around three characters. Catrin is a writer and is conscripted to write movie scripts and women's dialogue for war propaganda films. Edith is a dress maker who works at Madame Tussaud's but she ends up working in the costume department for the movie. Allistair is an actor in the sunset of his career. The movie they make brings them together.

Made into a movie.

Rating: 3/5
Recommendation: An OK read. Disjointed. Maybe the movie is better.

#112 Two Old Fools Ole

#112 Two Old Fools Ole

The second in the two old fools series. Another easy read about a British couple living in Spain in their retirement years. More stories about chickens, cats, neighbours, and all the stuff that goes on in a small Spanish village.

Rating: 4/5
Recommendation: An easy read. Large print.

#111

I forget the name of this book as I took it back to the library before writing about it.

#110 Chickens, Mules, and Two Old Fools

Chickens, Mules, and Two Old Fools
By Victoria Twead

Memoir. This was a funny and entertaining book. A British couple retires to a small village in Spain.
They have various adventures, with chickens, mules, villagers, a sexy local doctor, other British expats, and other crazy characters.

A good book to read as I decompress from yet another awful day at work.

Rating: 4/5
Recommendation: Yes!

#109 Flesh and Bone and Water

Flesh and Bone and Water

By Luiza Sauma

This novel takes place in Brazil and London. Andre is a young boy who grows up in a privileged family in Brazil, with a doctor father and a brother. His mother died when he was nine years old. They always have servants, and one of the servants is a beautiful young woman who Andre falls in love with, and they have a secret affair, as white people often do with their coloured servants. Of course Luana gets pregnant, and dad helps "get rid of" the baby, or at least that's what Andre thinks happened.

Thirty years later, Andre is a doctor in London, newly separate from his wife, when letters start arriving from Luana. Finally, Andre returns to Brazil to see Luana and the whole truth comes out. Luana is actually his half sister, as his father had an affair with her mother. Their baby was never aborted, and Luana raised him until his death at twenty-six by drowning.

In some ways a predictable story, but in other ways, there were surprises.

It was interesting to read about life in Brazil, how the rich lived, descriptions of Ipanema, Copacabana, and the crumbling colonial ways of life. An easy read.

Rating: 4/5

Recommendation: Yes.

#109 Solitude

Solitude
By Robert Kull

A memoir. Bob goes to a remote island in the Patagonia wilderness of South America. He lives there for a year, chronicling his experience. The book is written as journal entries, with interlude chapters delving more academically into various topics which he explores in his journalling. Is he looking for enlightenment? Sounds like it. Does he abuse his cat? Yes, which at times is disturbing. Poor cat.

I skimmed through a lot of this book as I wasn't really into the philosophy or the discussions about Buddhist practice and teachings.

Rating: 3/4
Recommendation: If you're into the subject matter. Wouldn't recommend it to many.

#108 The Good Mother

The Good Mother
By Sinead Moriarty

More chic lit. Twelve year old Jess lives with her mom and two brothers. Dad has left, and now has a baby with a younger woman. Various family stuff happens, but Jess ends up getting an aggressive from of AML. The family is further traumatized by her death. Luke, the eldest brother gets his girlfriend pregnant at 18. Should they keep the baby? They eventually decide to, and two months after Jess dies, the baby girl is born.

Easy reading. Despite the death of 12 year old Jess to cancer, the crying and tears goes on and on and on and on........OK, we know it's sad, but at the end it was just filler.

Rating: 3/5
Recommendation: If you like chic lit.

#107 Good As Gold

Good As Gold
By Louise Patten

Historical fiction based in part on the sinking of the Titanic.

A banking family, with one family member having survived the sinking of the Titanic. Edie, the great granddaughter is doing her PhD dissertation on the Titanic and looking for a new angle on the sinking. In the meantime, various family members in the bank are laundering money and smuggling gold aboard sailboats. Edie discovers how dirty the family banking has been, and one uncle gets killed by Russian thugs due to using their gold as collateral for a Ponzi investment scheme.

Some true (apparently) details about why the Titanic sank, apparently a long kept family secret. The helmsman turned the helm the wrong way, inadvertently steering the ship into the iceberg instead of away because the command was given at a time when wheel commands were replacing helm commands, which were opposite.

Chic lit. Good for passing time. Is the new evidence actually true? It sounds plausible.

Rating: 3.5/5
Recommendation: Sure, if you like chic lit.