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133. Blood, Sweat and Tiaras

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:   Adrienne Rosel Bulinski

Author:   Adrienne Rosel Bulinski

Genre:  Memoir, Non-Fiction, Motivational

344 pages, published September 21, 2016

Reading Format:  Book

 

Summary

Blood, Sweat and Tiaras is the memoir of Adrienne Rosel Bulinski, a friend of mind, and a former Miss Kansas who suffered a life changing injury when she was thrown from a horse and almost lost her foot.  The book details Adrienne’s life before the accident, from her childhood to competing in beauty pageants to trying to make it on Broadway to her long, slow, climb back after the accident that almost left her without a foot.   

 

My Take

I was a bit surprised at how readable I found Blood, Sweat and Tiaras.  My friend Adrienne who wrote it is a motivational speaker and marketing maven.  For a new writer, she did a great job relating the story of her life and it definitely held my interest.  I also appreciated her “never give up” message and how she connected it to all of the hurdles in her own life.

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132. Seven Brief Lessons on Physics

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:   

Author:   Carlo Rovelli

Genre:  Non-Fiction, Science

86 pages, published March 1, 2016

Reading Format:  Book

 

Summary

In seven brief lessons, Italian theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli guides readers with through the most transformative physics breakthroughs of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.  This entertaining introduction to modern physics explains general relativity, quantum mechanics, elementary particles, gravity, black holes, the complex architecture of the universe, and the role of humans in the strange world Rovelli describes.  “Here, on the edge of what we know, in contact with the ocean of the unknown, shines the mystery and the beauty of the world,” Rovelli writes. “And it’s breathtaking.”  

 

Quotes

“We are made of the same stardust of which all things are made, and when we are immersed in suffering or when we are experiencing intense joy we are being nothing other than what we can’t help but be:  a part of our world.”

 

“Genius hesitates.”

 

“The very foundation of science is to keep the door open to doubt.”

 

“we are all born from the same celestial seed; all of us have the same father, from which the earth, the mother who feeds us, receives clear drops of rain, producing from them bright wheat and lush trees, and the human race, and the species of beasts, offering up the foods with which all bodies are nourished, to lead a sweet life and generate offspring”

 

“In his youth Albert Einstein spent a year loafing aimlessly. You don’t get anywhere by not ‘wasting’ time- something, unfortunately, that the parents of teenagers tend frequently to forget.”

 

“A university student attending lectures on general relativity in the morning and others on quantum mechanics in the afternoon might be forgiven for thinking that his professors are fools, or have neglected to communicate with each other for at least a century.”

 

“Quantum mechanics and experiments with particles have taught us that the world is a continuous, restless swarming of things, a continuous coming to light and disappearance of ephemeral entities. A set of vibrations, as in the switched-on hippie world of the 1960s. A world of happenings, not of things.”

 

“Nature is our home, and in nature we are at home. This strange, multicoloured and astonishing world which we explore – where space is granular, time does not exist, and things are nowhere – is not something that estranges us from our true selves, for this is only what our natural curiosity reveals to us about the place of our dwelling. About the stuff of which we ourselves are made.”

 

“All things are continually interacting with each other, and in doing so each bears the traces of that with which it has interacted: and in this sense all things continuously exchange information about each other.”

 

“It is hardly surprising that there are more things in heaven and earth, dear reader, than have been dreamed of in our philosophy – or in our physics.”

 

“Human beings often cling to their certainties for fear that their opinions will be proven false. But a certainty that cannot be called into question is not a certainty. Solid certainties are those that survive questioning. In order to accept questioning as the foundation for our voyage toward knowledge, we must be humble enough to accept that today’s truth may become tomorrow’s falsehood.”

 

“Life on Earth gives only a small taste of what can happen in the universe.”

My Take

In Seven Brief Lessons on Physics, Rovelli explores smallness (exploring the nature of matter at the subatomic level) and largeness (discussing the shape of the universe and the potential for other universes), the kind of topics that may make your head hurt if you think about them too much.  To his credit, my head didn’t hurt as I was reading Rovelli’s fascinating book.  He is an entertaining writer who has a lot of very interesting ideas to convey in just 86 pages.

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128. The Wine Region of the Rioja

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:   Laurel and Warner Andrews

Author:   Ana Fabiano

Genre:  Non-Fiction, Travel, History

304 pages, published September 22, 2009

Reading Format:  Book

 

Summary

The Rioja is a region in northern Spain which produces some of the world’s best wines.  The Wine Region of the Rioja takes you on a journey through the history, culture, geography and people of this beautiful part of the world. Filled with gorgeous photographs, this is the only wine book endorsed by the Riojan government.  To write this book, Ana Fabiano dug into Castilian books, conducted interviews with local experts, and spoke with generations of winemakers.  The result is a book that provides a historical overview of the area along with up-to-the-moment information on each valley, including its bodegas (what the Spanish call tasting rooms), grape varietals, wines, and producers. To enhance enjoyment of these wonderful wines from the Rioja, Fabiano provides a food section with recipes and pairings.

 

My Take

I was lent this book by friends prior to a trip to Spain.  Our plan was to hike the Camino de Santiago de Compostela and then reward ourselves with four days in the Rioja wine region (wine countries are my husband Scot’s favorite place to vacation).   Reading The Wine Region of the Rioja, I learned a lot about the area, its wine, its history, its food and its people.

This book was a very good introduction and helped me plan the bodegas (tasting rooms) that we wanted to visit.  I enjoyed reading this book and it enhanced our trip.  If you plan to visit the beautiful Rioja, then give it a read before you go.  for anyone looking to find out more about the wine region of the Rioja. Highlights some of the more famous bodegas, as well as provides a brief history of the area.

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127. The Zookeeper’s Wife

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:   

Author:   Diane Ackerman

Genre:  Non-Fiction, History, Biography, Animals, World War II

368 pages, published September 17, 2007

Reading Format:  Book

 

Summary

The Zookeeper’s Wife opens in 1939 with an examination of the idyllic life led by Jan and Antonina Zabinski, the zookeepers who run the Warsaw Zoo and also live on its premises with their young son Rhys and an assortment of adopted wild animals.  Their existence in Eden soon turns into hell when Germany invades Poland dropping bombs that destroy much of Warsaw including a large part of the Zabinski’s zoo.  With most of their animals dead, Jan and Antonina use their zoo as a safe haven and halfway house for more than 300 Jews who would otherwise be destined for concentration camps.   

 

Quotes

“Why was it, she asked herself, that ‘animals can sometimes subdue their predatory ways in only a few months, while humans, despite centuries of refinement, can quickly grow more savage than any beast.”

 

“God may promise not to destroy creation, but it is not a promise humankind made – to our peril.”

 

“Germany’s crime is the greatest crime the world has ever known, because it is not on the scale of History: it is on the scale of Evolution.”

 

“The faint pink coating the treetops promised rippling buds, a sure sign of spring hastening in, right on schedule, and the animal world getting ready for its fiesta of courting and mating, dueling and dancing, suckling and grubbing, costume-making and shedding-in short, the fuzzy, fizzy hoopla of life’s ramshackle return.”

My Take

I have read a lot of books about World War II in the past few years and wasn’t sure if I wanted to tackle another one.  However, I’m glad that I gave The Zookeeper’s Wife a chance.  While there is a lot of devotion to the struggle against the Nazis and the suffering of the Jews that it is present in many World War II themed books, The Zookeeper’s Wife offers a unique perspective on this tumultuous time and brings to life the heroic deeds of Jan and Antonina Zabinski.  I can recommend not only this book, but also the movie version starring the beautiful and talented Jessica Chastain.

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123. The Financial Lives of the Poets

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:   

Author:   Jess Walter

Genre:  Fiction, Satire, Humor

304 pages, published September 22, 2009

Reading Format:  Book

 

Summary

The Financial Lives of the Poets tells the story of Matt Prior, who gave up his business journalist job to start a blog called Poetfolio which conveyed financial news in the form of poems.  Needless to say, Poetfolio didn’t work out all that well and Matt is in danger of  losing everything else in his life, his wife, his house, his children until he discovers a way to save it all that seems too good to be true.  

 

Quotes

“But it’s not easy, realizing how we fucked it all up. And that turns out to be the hardest thing to live with, not the regret or the fear, but the realization that the edge is so close to where we live.”

 

“Among the world’s evils—fascism, ethnic cleansing, environmental degradation—smoking deserves the most severe curricular attention in my kids’ school.”

 

“I don’t know what I expected – no maybe I do, Al Pacino from Scarface- but this drug dealer is more like Al Pacino at the beginning of The Godfather reasonably bemused, untouched by his

criminal world, sitting with Diane Keaton whispering about Luca Brazzi, not yet asleep with the fishes, or like Al Pacino from Glengarry Glen Ross, although actually, now that I think about it, he’s not like Al Pacino at all but more like Kevin Spacey from that film, and who’s ever been afraid of Kevin Spacey?”

 

“my money guy Richard is going without a tie now, like a politician who wants to appeal to the suffering common man (or perhaps every morning his firm takes the ties and shoelaces away from the brokers and financial planners to keep them from offing themselves)”

 

“Listen,” Richard says, „unless you’re about to inherit some money, what we’re talking about here is irreversible, fatal. You have fiscal Ebola, Matt. You are bleeding out through your nose and your mouth and your eye sockets, from your financial asshole.”

See! Fiscal Ebola? My financial asshole is bleeding? This was exactly why I started poetfolio.com; there are money poets everywhere.”

 

“So I make one phone call, and just like that, we’re eating pizza at 6:30. What is this world? You tap seven abstract figures onto a piece of plastic thin as a billfold, hold that plastic device to your head, use your lungs and vocal cords to indicate more abstractions, and in thirty minutes, a guy pulls up in a 2,000-pound machine made on an island on the other side of the world, fueled by viscous liquid made from the rotting corpses of dead organisms pulled from the desert on yet another side of the world and you give this man a few sheets of green paper representing the abstract wealth of your home nation, and he gives you a perfectly reasonable facsimile of one of the staples of the diet of a people from yet another faraway nation.

And the mushrooms are fresh.”

My Take

After finishing Beautiful Ruins, Jess Walters’ best-selling and critically acclaimed 2012 book, I wanted to read more by this amazing author.  After a quick Amazon search, I zeroed in on The Financial Lives of the Poets, a satirical book about the financial crisis that Walter had written a few years earlier.  It did not disappoint. From the hilarious concept of “Poetfolio,” a website that delivers financial news in the form of poems, to great characters to his capture of the zeitgeist of 2008 financial meltdown era, Walters delivers a quick reading, fun book that has something interesting to say about our modern times.

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115. The Snowman

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:  

Author:   Jo Nesbø

Genre:  Fiction, Mystery, Crime, Thriller, Suspense

383 pages, published May 10, 2011

Reading Format:  Audio Book

 

Summary

In The Snowman, internationally acclaimed crime writer Jo Nesbø tells the tale of Harry Hole, a troubled police investigator in modern day Oslo, Norway as he tries to track down a serial killer who murders unfaithful women during the first snowfall of winter and leaves a snowman as his calling card.  As his investigation deepens, Hole discovers that he has become a pawn in an increasingly terrifying game with a sinister killer.

 

Quotes

“Evil is not a thing. It cannot take possession of you. It’s the opposite; it’s a void, an absence of goodness. The only thing you can be frightened of here is yourself.”

 

“Good stories are never about a string of successes but about spectacular defeats,” Støp had said. “Even though Roald Amundsen won the race to the South Pole, it’s Robert Scott the world outside Norway remembers. None of Napoleon’s victories is remembered like the defeat at Waterloo. Serbia’s national pride is based on the battle against the Turks at Kosovo Polje in 1389, a battle the Serbs lost resoundingly. And look at Jesus! The symbol of the man who is claimed to have triumphed over death ought to be a man standing outside the tomb with his hands in the air. Instead, throughout time Christians have preferred the spectacular defeat: when he was hanging on the cross and close to giving up. Because it’s always the story of the defeat that moves us most.”

 

“What is worse? Taking the life of a person who wants to live or taking death from a person who wants to die.”

 

“We’re capable of understanding that someone has to drop an atomic bomb on a town of innocent civilians, but not that others have to cut up prostitutes who spread disease and moral depravity in the slums of London. Hence we call the former realism and the latter madness.”

 

“if every baby was a perfect miracle, life was basically a process of degeneration.”

My Take

While The Snowman has a certain level of creepiness to it, I was very quickly hooked into this story of a diabolical serial killer set against the unique backdrop of Norway.  Nesbø is a master of twists and there is no shortage of them in The Snowman.  I was also impressed by the character development and motivation in the story, especially of the protagonist Harry Hole.  If you like mysteries and crime thrillers, then The Snowman is worth checking out.

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110. End of Watch

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:   

Author:   Stephen King

Genre:  Fiction, Thriller, Crime, Suspense

432 pages, published June 7, 2016

Reading Format:  Audio Book

 

Summary

End of Watch is the third and final book in Stephen King’s Bill Hodges trilogy (the first two books were Mr. Mercedes and Finders Keepers).  Hodges is a retired detective who matches wits with several bad guys.  Hodges’ most diabolical foil is Brady Hartzfield who is known as the “Mercedes Killer” and is Hodges’ antagonist in the first book.  Seemingly in a permanent vegetative state, Hartzfield is back In End of Watch with powers that enable him to the drive his enemies to suicide.  Hodges and his compatriots Holly Gibney and Jerome Robinson must figure out a way to stop Hartzfield before they become victims themselves.

 

Quotes

“It’s about how some people carelessly squander what others would sell their souls to have: a healthy, pain-free body. And why? Because they’re too blind, too emotionally scarred, or too self-involved to see past the earth’s dark curve to the next sunrise. Which always comes, if one continues to draw breath.”

 

“bad luck keeps bad company.”

 

“Being needed is a great thing. Maybe the great thing.”

 

“The seeds sown in childhood put down deep roots.”

 

“That’s me, Brady thought happily. When they give your middle name, you know you’re an authentic boogeyman.”

 

“Payback is a bitch, and the bitch is back.”

My Take

I enjoy Stephen King generally and enjoyed both Mr. Mercedes and Finders Keepers, the first two books in the Bill Hodges trilogy, in particular and was therefore looking forward to finishing off this series.  I was not disappointed.  King knows how to both create indelible characters and build suspense.  Both skills are on full display in End of Watch.  Not the best Stephen King book I’ve read, but it is certainly worth the time.

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109. The 100-year-old man who climbed out the window and disappeared

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:   Lisa Stock

Author:   Jonas Jonasson

Genre:  Fiction, Humor, Foreign, Historical Fiction

384 pages, published September 11, 2012

Reading Format:  Book

 

Summary

As he prepares to celebrate his 100th birthday, Allan Karlsson does the unexpected.  Still in his slippers, he steps out of his nursing home window and into an incredible adventure.  He will find himself accidentally in possession of a small fortune, on the run from the mob and the police and on the way will make the acquaintance of a colorful cast of characters, including Sophia a former circus elephant.  We learn about Allan’s amazing life and his close encounters with the major players of the twentieth century, along with his key role in shaping our history, through a series of interspersed flashbacks.   

 

Quotes

“People could behave how they liked, but Allan considered that in general it was quite unnecessary to be grumpy if you had the chance not to.”

 

“When life has gone into overtime it’s easy to take liberties,”

 

“There are only two things I can do better than most people. One of them is to make vodka from goats’ milk, and the other is to put together an atom bomb.”

 

“Revenge is like politics, one thing always leads to another until bad has become worse, and worse has become worst.”

 

“Allan thought it sounded unnecessary for the people in the seventeenth century to kill each other. If they had only been a little patient they would all have died in the end anyway. Julius said that you could say the same of all epochs.”

 

“Allan admitted that the difference between madness and genius was subtle, and that he couldn’t with certainty say which it was in this case, but that he had his suspicions.”

 

“But God answered with silence. He did that sometimes, and Father Ferguson always interpreted it to mean that he should think for himself. Admittedly, it didn’t always work out well when the pastor thought for himself, but you couldn’t just give up.”

 

“Never try to out-drink a Swede, unless you happen to be a Finn or at least a Russian.”

 

“Allan Emmanuelle Karlsson closed his eyes and felt perfectly convinced that he would now pass away forever. It had been exciting, the entire journey, but nothing lasts forever, except possibly general stupidity.”

My Take

The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared is a fun book that alternates between the present day, hilarious antics of a 100 year old man and his ragtag gang who are on the run from the police and his adventures through the 20th Century.  Through the inscrutable Allan Karlsson who specializes in the art of blowing things up and has perfected the art of making alcoholic beverages from goats milk, we meet Joseph Stalin, Winston Churchill, Harry Truman Mao Tse-Tung , Francisco Franco, Charles de Gaulle and, best of all, Albert Einstein’s dim-witted half brother Harold.  Quirky and unique, this book is a fun and fast reading romp.

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107. Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:   Melissa Byers

Author:   David Sedaris

Genre:  Non-Fiction, Essays, Memoir, Humor

275 pages, published April 23, 2013

Reading Format:  Book

 

Summary

An eclectic collection of essays from David Sedaris, an eminent humorist, which cover different eras in his life, from his time as a child in swim competitions fruitlessly trying to impress his dad to his daily routine of picking up trash around the English countryside to his surprisingly pleasant colonoscopy. The essays range from hilariously funny to serious, moving or even depressing.  

 

Quotes

“All these young mothers chauffeuring their volcanic three-year-olds through the grocery store. The child’s name always sounds vaguely presidental, and he or she tends to act accordingly. “Mommy hears what you’re saying about treats,” the woman will say, “But right now she needs you to let go of her hair and put the chocolate-covered Life Savers back where they came from.”  “No!” screams McKinley or Madison, Kennedy or Lincoln or beet-faced baby Reagan. Looking on, I always want to intervene. “Listen,” I’d like to say, “I’m not a parent myself, but I think the best solution at this point is to slap that child across the face. It won’t stop its crying, but at least now it’ll be doing it for a good reason.”

 

“I don’t know how these couples do it, spend hours each night tucking their kids in, reading them books about misguided kittens or seals who wear uniforms, and then reread them if the child so orders. In my house, our parents put us to bed with two simple words: “Shut up.” That was always the last thing we heard before our lights were turned off. Our artwork did not hang on the refrigerator or anywhere near it, because our parents recognized it for what it was: crap. They did not live in a child’s house, we lived in theirs.”

 

“Their house had real hard-cover books in it, and you often saw them lying open on the sofa, the words still warm from being read.”

 

“As a child I assumed that when I reached adulthood, I would have grown-up thoughts.”

 

“Neighbors would pass, and when they honked I’d remember that I was in my Speedo. Then I’d wrap my towel like a skirt around my waist and remind my sisters that this was not girlish but Egyptian, thank you very much.”

 

“There’s a short circuit between my brain and my tongue, thus “Leave me the fuck alone” comes out as “Well, maybe. Sure. I guess I can see your point.”

 

“Of course, the diary helps me as well. ‘That wasn’t your position on July 7, 1991,’ I’ll remind Hugh an hour after we’ve had a fight. I’d have loved to rebut him sooner, but it takes awhile to look these things up.”

 

“It was one of those situations I often find myself in while traveling. Something’s said by a stranger I’ve been randomly thrown into contact with, and I want to say, “Listen. I’m with you on most of this, but before we continue, I need to know who you voted for in the last election.”

 

“I asked her, dreamily, if we had met, and when she told me that we had not, I gave her a little finger wave, the type a leprechaun might offer a pixie who was floating by on a maple leaf. “Well, hi there,” I whispered.”

 

“Then there are vegans, macrobiotics, and a new group, flexitarians, who eat meat if not too many people are watching.”

 

“My first boyfriend was black as well, but that doesn’t prove I’m color-blind, just that I like big butts.”

 

“Drawing attention to Gretchen’s weight was the sort of behavior my mother referred to as ‘stirring the turd,’ and I did it a lot that summer.”

 

“In Japanese and Italian, the response to [“How are you?”] is “I’m fine, and you?” In German it’s answered with a sigh and a slight pause, followed by “Not so good.”

 

“On a recent flight from Tokyo to Beijing, at around the time that my lunch tray was taken away, I remembered that I needed to learn Mandarin. “Goddamnit,” I whispered. “I knew I forgot something.”

 

“It’s not lost on me that I’m so busy recording life, I don’t have time to really live it. I’ve become like one of those people I hate, the sort who go to the museum and, instead of looking at the magnificent Brueghel, take a picture of it, reducing it from art to proof. It’s not “Look what Brueghel did, painted this masterpiece” but “Look what I did, went to Rotterdam and stood in front of a Brueghel painting!”

My Take

I have always enjoyed the humor of David Sedaris, especially his autobiographical essays, and this book was no exception.  His essay on modern parenting compared to his childhood had me trying to read parts of it to my husband Scot, but being unable to do so because I was laughing too hard.  The book was worth reading for that experience alone.

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106. The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:   

Author:   Mitch Albom

Genre:  Historical Fiction, Music, Fiction

512 pages, published November 10, 2012

Reading Format:  Audio Book

 

Summary

With a focus on the music scene starting in the 1940’s and a touch of magical realism, Mitch Albom tells the epic story of Frankie Presto, the greatest guitar player who ever lived and the lives he changed with his six magical blue strings.  Frankie is born in a burning church during the Spanish Civil war, abandoned as an infant, and raised by a blind guitar teacher until he is sent to America at nine years old with only an old guitar and six precious strings.  His amazing journey weaves him through the musical landscape of the second half of the Twentieth Century where he encounters D’jango Reinhardt, Duke Ellington, Hank Williams, Elvis Presley, the Everly Brothers, Tony Bennett, Lyle Lovett, and many more.  Along the way, he becomes a pop star, meets, marries, loses and regains the love of his life, battles addiction, depression and hopelessness and changes many lives with the power of his magic strings.  

 

Quotes

“All humans are musical. Why else would the Lord give you a beating heart?”

 

“This is life. Things get taken away. You will learn to start over many times — or you will be useless.”

 

“You cannot write if you do not read,” the blind man said. “You cannot eat if you do not chew. And you cannot play if you do not”—he grabbed for the boy’s hand—“listen.”

 

“Everyone joins a band in this life. And what you play always affects someone. Sometimes, it affects the world.”

 

“EVERYONE JOINS A BAND IN THIS LIFE. You are born into your first one. Your mother plays the lead. She shares the stage with your father and siblings. Or perhaps your father is absent, an empty stool under a spotlight. But he is still a founding member, and if he surfaces one day, you will have to make room for him. As life goes on, you will join other bands, some through friendship, some through romance, some through neighborhoods, school, an army. Maybe you will all dress the same, or laugh at your own private vocabulary. Maybe you will flop on couches backstage, or share a boardroom table, or crowd around a galley inside a ship. But in each band you join, you will play a distinct part, and it will affect you as much as you affect it.”

 

“In every artist’s life, there comes a person who lifts the curtain on creativity. It is the closest you come to seeing me again. The first time, when you emerge from the womb, I am a brilliant color in the rainbow of human talents from which you choose. Later, when a special someone lifts the curtain, you feel that chosen talent stirring inside you, a bursting passion to sing, paint, dance, bang on drums. And you are never the same.”

 

“You humans are always locking each other away. Cells. Dungeons. Some of your earliest jails were sewers, where men sloshed in their own waste. No other creature has this arrogance—to confine its own. Could you imagine a bird imprisoning another bird? A horse jailing a horse? As a free form of expression, I will never understand it. I can only say that some of my saddest sounds have been heard in such places. A song inside a cage is never a song. It is a plea.”

 

“Sometimes I think the greatest talent of all is perseverance.”

 

“I have said that music allows for quick creation. But it is nothing compared with what you humans can destroy in a single conversation.”

 

“Silence enhances music. What you do not play can sweeten what you do. But it is not the same with words. What you do not say can haunt you.”

 

“At a certain point, your life is more about your legacy to your kids than anything else.”

My Take

I’ve read several Mitch Albom books (including The Time Keeper) since starting my thousand book quest and The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto is my favorite one.  Not only does the book offer the reader an interesting retrospective of music since the 1940’s, but it also contains compelling insights on the nature of talent, the choices we make in life and the meaning and importance of love.  With many different voices used to great effect on the Audio Book, I would recommend listening to, rather than reading, this book.

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