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Showing posts from February, 2013

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Infinite Country by Patricia Engel | Thoughts

   Published : 2021   ||    Format : print   ||    Location : Colombia ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆   What was it about the country that kept everyone hostage to its fantasy? The previous month, on its own soil, an American man went to his job at a plant and gunned down fourteen coworkers, and last spring alone there were four different school shootings. A nation at war with itself, yet people still spoke of it as some kind of paradise.. Thoughts : Infinite Country follows two characters - young Talia, who at the beginning of this book, escapes a girl’s reform school in North Colombia so that she can make her previously booked flight to the US. Before she can do that, she needs to travel many miles to reach her father and get her ticket to the rest of her family. As we follow Talia’s treacherous journey south, we learn about how she ended up in the reform school in the first place and why half her family resides in the US. Infinite Country tells the story of her family through the other protagonist, El

The Twelve Tribes of Hattie by Ayana Mathis

The thing to do was to insult her or slap her or run her out into the night. She’d left him with all their children. She was holding another man’s baby in her arms. Anyone would agree that he ought to do something terrible to her, but she had been gone fifteen hours, and in that fifteen hours his life had crumbled like a lump of dry earth. Fifteen-year old Hattie Shepherd leaves her home in Georgia and migrates to Philadelphia with her mother and two sisters, hoping for a better life. What she sees in her newly adopted home state astounds her - blacks and whites walking side by side, a black woman looking at a white flower vendor man in the eye and not getting attacked when she accidentally drops one of his arrangements, no black cowering when a white person passes by, etc. This more thankful life is what she wants, and yet, she ends up getting married to a good-for-nothing, womanizer and bearing eleven children. Still, the birth of her first two children - twins - brings a new

The Week in Books (2/4 - 2/17 2013)

What a slow couple of weeks it has been here. I have been reading all kinds of books - home decor, knitting, but not much fiction or nonfiction. Thankfully, I'm in no rut. Plus I'm in the middle of two intriguing books, just that they are moving slow for no fault of theirs. This week I read... -  Where'd You Go, Bernadette  by Maria Semple: Easily going to be one of my favorite books of this year, I'm still astounded by how close I came to not reading this book. Thank goodness for all kinds of must-read lists. If you haven't thought of reading this one yet, you. simply . must. read. it. -  The Fault in our Stars  by John Green: I resolved early this year to finally read this book and see why the whole world of readers is raving about it. Having finished it, I can see what the fuss is about. While I didn't love it fully, boy, you have to be an unruffled person to not be affected by it. The subject of this book is sadly too personal in my home and I found it

The Man in the Rockefeller Suit by Mark Seal

Suddenly, Rockefeller pushed his pursuer away, put his daughter down, yanked the car door open, and pulled the child into the limo so fast that she hit her head on the doorframe. "Go! Go!" he shouted, and the driver stepped on the gas, dragging the social worker, who had hold of the back-door handle, several yards before he let go and fell to the pavement. On July 27 2008, Clark Rockefeller was to spend the day with his daughter, Reigh. Having lost custody of her to his wife, after their nasty divorce, Clark is allowed only three supervised visits a year. This was however not going to be a regular visit. Instead, it was going to be the incident that finally unmasks this supposedly wealthy person with a famous surname. After making small conversations and pretending to be on a stroll with Reigh, he manages to violently shake off the social worker and jump into his private limousine, having duped the driver as well. After six days of a wild goose chase, Rockefeller is fi

A look at January and plans for February

As with a lot of things lately, I'm a little late posting about how January turned out to be. I thought I'll skip this post altogether but it feels better to slide back into blogging through some kind of non-review post. I've been having a fun couple of weeks, first with Wii, and then with finally teaching myself how to knit after fascinating over the art of kitting for more than 15 years. When I finally wrapped my head around it, I almost whooped! It's wonderful to be doing more than reading or blogging. Back to January - I read six books, which is way more than I managed in the past many months. While I'm no longer too fussed about the number, it's nice to feel that I did get a good amount of reading done. Two were audiobooks, which, thanks to my now longer commute between home and work, I'm beginning to appreciate more than ever. So here's what I read: Five of those reviews are pending. What a way to start the year! At least, better there

The Week in Books (1/28 - 2/3 2013)

Hello blog! I'm still here. mumbling.. mumbling... Last week, we got the gaming/workout room downstairs set up almost completely, and I finally started playing to the Zumba songs on the Wii. Let me make this clear - I had never played on the Wii until this week and for the first time, I feel that I have finally found a gaming device that was made just for me. I loved how much fun it was to dance, and play tennis and boxing with my husband on the Wii that I couldn't wait to get home each day this past week. Let's expect my love affair with this awesome gadget to continue for a while while the blog and the books become unwitting victims! This week I read... -  Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore  by Robin Sloane: This book, written for bibliophiles and computer programming aficionados, captivated me on one level but bored me on another. Luckily, it was a quick read, and the bookish/computerish aspects of this book called out the geek in me. But the plot was very thin a