Rapid Fire Mini Reviews - 12

"Ether Day: The Strange Tale of America's Greatest Medical Discovery and the Haunted Men who Made It" by Julie M Fenster.

I wanted this book to be awesome but it was pretty boring. Which is surprising because it gets really gory about surgery pre-anesthesia, about three men all contending they invented the same thing and the fact one of them has a mastadon skeleton in his house. Though there was one really great line I loved: "An operation without anesthesia was nothing more than trauma at the top of the hour: on a schedule".

"Of Mess and Moxie: Wrangling Delight Out of This Wild and Glorious Life" by Jen Hatmaker

I love me some Jen Hatmaker. I truly do. I always am right at the top of the holds list when she has a new book out. This book was fine. I just feel like it's kind of like all of her other ones. (Except for 7, which I love the most and is very different.) I feel like you could put the text of most of her books in a bucket and shake it and pull out a chapter and it could be from any number of books. It's all very agreeable it's just not really different from any other thing she has done. 

"Hex" by Thomas Olde Heuvlt
I read this spooky book right around Halloween. There are some flaws with this book for sure (it's a little heavy handed with the imagery and the dad is an idiot) but the concept of a witch that was murdered during colonial times that haunts a modern cursed town was an interesting concept to me.

"The Archivist's Story" by Travis Holland
This is the story of a youngish man who was an English professor in Stalin's Russia who then begins work in the archives of the dreaded Lubyanka. He's not a true believer but toes the party lien until he comes across a prisoner, a man who is an author he admired and comes into the possession of the author's last, unfinished manuscript. I think what made this story most interesting was the day to day drudgery and struggle of people under this regime.

"Apollo 8: The Thrilling Story of the First Mission to the Moon" by Jeffrey Klugger
If you have an interest in space and want to lean a lot without being bogged down by all the nitty gritty details of math and mechanics, this is the book for you! It covers so much more than just the titular apollo mission. Such a great read. I watched Apollo 13 (for the 100000th time) a few days after finishing this book and I kept pipping in with new little nuggets of information I had learned and didn't annoy my husband at all.

Rapid Fire Book Review #8

The Girl Who Fell From the Sky - Man, okay. This book is sad, but interesting and I sped through it so I could find out what would happen next.Short, compelling, sad, hopeful.


The Fantastic Laboratory of Dr Weigel: How Two Brave Scientists Battled Typhus and Sabotaged the Nazis- So typhus is gross and terrible. 2 different doctors worked on a vaccine. One saved as many Jews as he could by employing them and using them as (humane) guinea pigs for the developing vaccine. The other doctor was Jewish, imprisoned in a concentration camp and forced to try to recreate the vaccine under those deplorable and terrifying conditions.


Vampires in the Grove - Another great story collection from Karen Russell. I liked that none of these stories were set in her usual "Swamplandia" type setting. I like that setting but variety is good! My favorite stories were the very first one and the horse presidents!


Under Major Domo Minor - I was intrigued by the summary, weird happenings in an old castle. Yes. In. And the story was fine, not extraordinary but not bad. And then surprise orgy. Which didn't necessarily improve the book, which I think says something about it.


Hiroshima Maidens - After the atomic bombings of Japan in WWII, several young women who were severely disfigured came to the United States for treatment. It was really interesting to hear about how incredibly different the cultures were even in the 50s. Like, how running water and electricity in Japan were kind of rare unless you were in a big city.


The Violinists Thumb - Oh glory, this is a great book. Maybe Sean Kean is just incredibly special and makes all kinds of science easily understood and easily digestible. Here's a fun fact: Rachmaninoff had HUMUNGOUS hands that stretched to an octave and a half. That's freakish. And probably makes his stuff incredibly hard to play.

Rapid Fire Book Review #7 and Giveaway Winner Announced!

To wrap up our Little Princess Read A Long Jamie and I are talking about the 90s version of the movie. Pop over and reminisce!



"The Good Shufu: Finding Love, Self and Home on the Far Side of the World" by Tracy Slater

I have very few good things to say about this book. The one part that I thought was interesting was the interesting cultural aspects of Japan. The author kind of drove me crazy, and I feel a little bit bad for criticizing her life because it's hers, but I wanted to throttle her a lot. It was packed full of #richwhitepeopleproblems. Other people liked this book though so...

 

"Church of Spies: The Pope's Secret War Against Hitler" by Mark Riebling

The Vatican STILL gets a lot of flack for not having been a louder voice against Hitler and the Nazis. This book suggests that they orchestrated a lot of spying and undercover operations, though for most (self included) a very loud, very angry "This Hitler guys is a mass murdering demon and whoever kills him first gets into heaven the fastest". Or something similar. The best part about this book was learning about a man named Wilhelm Canaris. This man was extraordinary. He joined the Nazi party early, because he thought they would stop Communism. And then once Canaris saw the Nazis for what they really were he did everything he could to destroy it from the inside. He was also close for a time with the Nazi who (possibly) makes me the angriest, Heydrich. He took a hard turn, and I think earned his redemption. He was executed the same day and the same place as Dietrich Bonhoeffer, another super compelling figure. Here's his wikipedia. I'm officially on the prowl for a biography. (Cover is not good though)

 

Strands of Gold and Bronze by Jane Nickerson

Am I a sucker for a fairy tale retelling? Yes, yes I am. This one takes the legend of Bluebeard and plops it in Mississippi in the mid-1800s. The main girl was a little bit slow to catch on, and I think there were a lot of characters that could have been expanded to make a more interesting story; but overall a good fast, fluff read.

 

Our Endless Numbered Days by Claire Fuller
I read this book because several of my book blogger friends raved about it. Were they right to rave? Indeedy. I've never zipped through a 200 page book so quickly, I really needed to know what happened next. It's tense and interesting and the end makes you choke a little.

 

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaand our giveaway winner is.......Jamie from Books and Beverages! Thanks for participating everyone! I really appreciate it! And so do the animals at the animal shelter where they will love the box of donated goodies! (Also I appreciate that this looks totally rigged but there were only 8 entries and Jamie did 3 so odds were in her favor, haha)

Rapid Fire Book Reviews #5

These all ended up being nonfiction somehow. Not on purpose but I do like a good nonfiction!

Bringing Narnia Home: Lessons from the Other Side of the Wardrobe: Basically this book is life lessons and lessons through situations in the Chronicles of Narnia. It says at the beginning that it's important to have read all of the books. I've read them all, but for some of them it's been a long long time! Having said that, even if you don't remember/haven't read some of the other books (you know, like anything beyond LW&W) you will still get something out of this book. It even talks about why there's controversy with how the books are numbered which is something I'd always wondered about.

Adventures in Saying Yes: A Journey from Fear to Faith  Firstly, this book randomly showed up in my mail one day and I don't remember asking for it or receiving any emails about it. So if I promised someone at Bethany a full blown review for this and I failed to deliver I am truly sorry. But you get a mini one and hopefully that counts.This book is about a man and his family who are missionaries in Beirut in pre-9/11 times. I think there's a line between "I feel like God is calling me to do this, even if it's outside of my comfort zone" and doing things that are pretty dangerous and foolhardy. I feel like this man danced on that line a few times. But maybe you can really only tell where that line is when you're in that situation. At least he was honest about the times he failed spectacularly.

The Man Who Stalked Einstein: How Nazi Scientist Philip Lenard Changed the Course of History: So this book is about a scientist who makes it his life mission to slander and generally hate on Einstein. I assumed that this guy was just some ridiculous quack. He was a Nazi pretty much from the day it was founded. He didn't just hate Einstein for his "baseless" science, but also because he was a Jew (even though he wasn't practicing). I was like "Well he's a very open anti-Semite and he sounds pretty nuts so I'm sure he was a bad scientist too." Nope. He actually was one of the first people to figure out how to potentially make X-rays. Oh yes, and a Nobel prize winner. It's a lot of science (a lot a lot if you're a physics idiot like me). But if you have an interest in science and a real life man that sounds like an insane Bond villain, this is your book!

Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II: To be honest, I was going to make this an All Lady July book, but then I decided against it. A few too many characters for me to be able to keep straight and review succinctly. However, I'm glad I read it! The story of this little city that sprung up and employed all of those people on this top secret thing was very interesting. My Dad has asked me before if I've read it, and now I have! Planning cities is his deal, so maybe I can encourage him to read this one!

Rapid Fire Mini Reviews #2

"All That is Solid Melts into Air" by Darragh McKenon. Very good! Interwoven stories set around a struggling family in Moscow and a doctor recovering from a divorce, all set around the Chernobyl disaster. It made me want to find out more about that cataclysmic event. However I wouldn't recommend reading it while eating because the descriptions of people suffering from radiation was roooough.

"My Hands Came Away Red" by Lisa McKay.I wanted to like this more than I did. I felt like there was maybe one too many main characters. There wasn't enough time for character development for all of them so they fell a little flat. But the concept of the story and the plot I thought was great.

"Flowers for Algernon" by Daniel Keyes. Heartbreaking, interesting and very deserving of the awards it has won.

"Travels on the Lost Continent" by Bill Bryson. I generally like Bill Bryson. I hated this book. His attitude is snobby and bad and everything was beneath him. I'm glad I didn't start with this book or else I'd probably not have read any of his others.

"Alias Hook" by Lisa Jensen. This book is most most excellent. The only reason I didn't do a review is that there are so many other reviews out there about this great book. Read this one and throw shade at Peter Pan forever!

"Narrow Door at Colditz" by Robert L Wise. The fictionalized account of POW's attempted escapes/escapes from a camp that is housed in an ancient castle on a mountain near the Czech border. (From B&H Publishing) I couldn't really get past the writing style with this one.

"Mr Chartwell" by Rebecca Hunt. A huge black dog is the manifestation of depression that haunts Winston Churchill and a young librarian who has experienced tragedy. I didn't know what I was getting with this book at first but I loved it. So recommended.