July - December 2006

July 2006
Magical Melons, by Carol Ryrie Brink
The sequel to Caddie Woodlawn, but I think it was more individual stories rather than one long story with a continuous plot. Not bad, but not as good as the original. Of course, when are sequels ever as good as the originals?

Eats, Shoots & Leaves, by Lynne Truss
A goofy look at proper punctuation. It was mostly entertaining, although it got a little dry toward the end. Still, it's fun to read about bad punctuation that completely changes the intended meaning. Or maybe I'm just a nerd like that.

Man in Black, by Johnny Cash
After seeing Walk the Line, I wanted to read about what his life was really like. As usual, a lot of events were taken out of order to make the movie, but I think the gist of it was accurate. He struggled with drugs and eventually was able to defeat the addiction with June Carter's help. This book focuses more on his Christian beliefs than the movie does, and includes lyrics from several gospel songs he wrote.

August 2006
The English Patient, by Michael Ondaatje
This book is about a million times better than the movie. It all makes so much more sense. A girl stays in a ruined mansion to care for a war patient who cannot move or really do much of anything. Other people end up staying there too, and stuff happens. Unfortunately, the finer details of the plot have escaped me at the moment, but I remember being impressed that it was a pretty good book.

Plain Truth, by Jodi Picoult
A dead newborn is found in an Amish barn, and an Amish teenager is found to have given birth to the baby, but denies killing it. The family very reluctantly hires a non-Amish relative who is a lawyer to defend the girl. The book is about the story of the girl, the pregnancy, and the murder, but more than that, it is about the Amish and the non-Amish learning to get along and learn to work together.

Amsterdam, by Ian McEwan
Okay, now this book was weird. Two friends promise each other that if they become a menace to society, the other will put him out of his misery (a hotel in Amsterdam offers assisted suicide/assisted murder). Then they get in a bitter fight about something, and each thinks the other has become that menace to society and should be put down. Odd.

Picture Perfect, by Jodi Picoult
A Hollywood star and his wife seem to have the picture perfect life. Then she wakes up one day in a cemetary, not remembering who she is or why she wandered there. Her husband brings her home, and she slowly recalls bits and pieces of their life and finally figures out what happened to make her leave.

September 2006
The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini
Two boys grow up together in Afghanistan. One is the son of a rich widower. The other is the son of their servant. The rich son and his father eventually run away to America during one of the many wars and live somewhat happily ever after...until he learns that the servant's son has been killed and left a young son after him. The rich son returns to Afghanistan to find a place for the boy to live, only to find that the Taliban has changed the country and that his task is much different and more difficult than he anticipated. That was a crappy description of a very good book.

And Both Were Young, by Madeleine L'Engle
A girl in an all-girls boarding school and a boy who lives nearby meet and fall in love. Unexpectedly, the school allows her to see the boy in order to help heal his emotional wounds. A simple, but good, story.

October 2006
The Arm of the Starfish, by Madeleine L'Engle
Meg from A Wrinkle in Time is all grown up and married to Calvin O'Keefe with a large family of their own, and they live on an island off Portugal, where Dr O'Keefe does classified experiments with marine animals. A student named Adam comes to the island to intern for the summer, and gets mixed up with a girl who, unknown to Adam, is trying to steal Dr O'Keefe's research.

Dragons in the Water, by Madeleine L'Engle
Two of the O'Keefe children and their father are on board a freighter going to Venezuela from the US. One of their fellow passengers is taking a valuable family portrait to Venezuela to give to the government. Then the passenger is murdered...whodunit?

November 2006
Moneyball, by Michael Lewis
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It's about baseball, which I love, and specifically the Oakland Athletics, which is my husband's favorite team. Billy Beane (general manager of the A's) has a theory that baseball players need to get on base a lot, and that is much more important than how many home runs they hit, their batting average, whether they look like a typical baseball player, and all the other things that his scouts consider important. The book discusses his theories and the reasons behind them, uses specific examples with specific players, and talks about how he builds a successful team using a method all the other GMs think is crazy.

The Twenty-four Days Before Christmas, by Madeleine L'Engle
A children's book about a girl who is counting down the days until she is in the Christmas pageant, but worried that her mother will not be able to see her due to the impending birth of a sibling.

Magic Street, by Orson Scott Card
A young boy is found in a park and raised by a woman who had no children of her own. As he grows up, he discovers that he sometimes dreams about his neighbors being in danger as it is happening - unreal dangers, like becoming a fish and swimming in a waterbed. Unfortunately, this makes him a bit of an outcast. He eventually learns why these things happen and why he dreams about them, and must get the neighborhood together to fight the evil thing that causes it.

The End, by Lemony Snicket
A satisfying, although not neatly wrapped up, end to the series. He continues with the moral of the story being that everything does not end perfectly, but it's still possible to live happily ever after.

December 2006
Mists of Avalon, by Marion Zimmer Bradley
After wanting to read this book for years, I was somewhat disappointed. It tells the Arthur story from his sister Morgain's point of view. It's okay, but not that great.

Runny Babbit, by Shel Silverstein
A simple book of verses about Runny Babbit and his adventures.

The Broker, by John Grisham
A powerful broker is in prison when the president pardons him in the middle of the night. Many people and nations want him dead, so he is taken to Europe as part of the witness protection program. He eventually hates it and sneaks back to the US and to his family. Not too bad of a book...out of the usual John Grisham realm of lawyer stories.

Saturday, by Ian McEwan
One adventurous day in the life of a certain man. He is a doctor, his beloved daughter is coming home from college that day, and he accidentally makes an enemy who breaks in on his family dinner to hold the daughter hostage. It's a lot of activity for one day. Much less odd than Amsterdam, although it has it's quirks.

The Beatrice Letters, by Lemony Snicket
A random collection of letters between Beatrice and Lemony Snicket. Mildly entertaining, but also not as cohesive as I would like.

Hey, we're on the right year now! Yay!