With summer behind me and another year off to a great, busy, and hectic start, I've neglected keeping up my more-usually-than-not reliable reporting of books I've been reading. Thus, I'm going to mash up all the books I've read recently into one post!
Motivational Reading Materials....Everyone Needs 'Em:
Since running is a passion of mine, I often enjoy reading about it, too. It's a rather simple formula...Passion (reading) + Passion (running) = Awesome! These two books gave me a lot of positive thoughts and were wonderful to read in order to justify (enable?) spending so much time doing something that seems so odd and pointless to so many others. I'd recommend them both, but only if you like running. That's obvious.
Non-Fiction Favorites:
The memoir is my favorite genre of all-time, and if you follow this blog at all you'll know that finding a funny memoir is about as important to me as a good red velvet cupcake, ya know? Well, Bossypants by Tina Fey is red velvet with sprinkles. I laughed myself silly throughout this entire book! I listened to the audio version which Tina Fey narrates herself and it was as good as seeing her doing stand-up on SNL. I actually limited myself to 2 chapters a day so that I could prolong the humor as long as possible.
Let's Take the Long Way Home was a wonderful memoir of the intimacy of true friendship. As someone who has found my conspirator in friendship, I basked in the author's description of how she met her best friend, how it developed through common careers, hobbies, and their love and regard for one another. Her account of how their friendship became a guidepost through her friend's terminal illness was heart-wrenching and poignant. This book reminds us all to not take a moment for granted and to always let those you love the most know it...perpetually.
Eric Larsen is one of my favorite authors of narrative historical non-fiction. The author of Devil in the White City and Thunderstruck, Larsen chooses to examine life in Berlin during Hitler's rise to power, before WWII. Through the lives of the American ambassador to Germany's family, Larsen examines just how Hitler was able to sway so many seemily good and sane people to follow him and commit crimes of such unimaginable magnitude against their fellow citizens and, eventually, the entire world.
Scout, Atticus, and Boo is a collection of essays by well-known people (actresses, tv personalities, authors, etc.) reflecting on the importance of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird on both their personal lives and society in general. TKM is one of my all-time favorite books, and, it seems, I am not alone in holding it in such high regard.
Fiction:
Although I'd not recommend taking the time to read The Girls She Used to Be when there are so many other books out there way more deserving of your time, I did enjoy the plot of this book. The book follows the life of Melody McAllister (aka Kim, Shelly, Ann, Lynn, etc.) who has been in the Federal Witness Protection Program since she was six years old and her family witnessed a mob muder and turned state's evidence against powerful mob boss John Bovaro. I enjoyed the mob-out-to-get-innocent-girl aspect of the book, but the writing was mediocre and predictable.
Divergent, on the other hand, was a wondefully written YA book which I'd classify as a Hunger Games read-alike. Although predicable, too, (Teenage angst/parental discord/love) I enjoyed the idea of a post-appocolyptic Chicago as the setting for a dystopian world. The plot was also compelling in that the society was formed into factions dictated by the character of the citizens. This is the first in a trilogy by Veronica Roth that I anticipate reading.
