lululemon and the Future of Technical Apparel--#105

I picked this book up at a library sale for 50 cents, so I am sure that is part of the reason I bought it.  I had for a few months and for some reason I decided to read it, I think I was looking for something out of the ordinary and this fit.  I really didn't know anything about lululemon except it was expensive tights kind of things.  The book was written by the founder of the company Chip Wilson and he is an interesting person.  Goes into his history and his ideas on starting and then growing the company.  The company took off and when he looked for help, he found people willing to jump in but their version of help was not his.  Eventually he was forced out of leadership of the company although he still held a large number of shares in the company.  Interesting read about the technical clothes and development and then interesting about the company itself.  The founder Chip Wilson is a little out there and he certainly is giving his opinion of things but just wonder what a rebuttal would sound like.  Oh well, now I know more than I ever thought I would about this stuff.

There is 1 WL for this book on PBS & I will probably go ahead and post it to see about mailing off in the next few days.

Scattered Showers--#104 finished

A short story book by Rainbow Rowell, a Nebraska author, lives in Omaha.  I read one of her novels and was okay as I remember it.  This short story book seems a little more focused on young adult category which is okay, I don't mind mixing them in once in a while.  I thought the stories were pretty good, some teenage angst, first kiss, dating, that kind of stuff.  Also some more out there ones with witches, vampires, warlocks, etc and then characters in a writer's memory.  Overall pretty good.

There are 3 WL for the book but might see if one of my kids would be interested in it first before PBS.

Spikes--#103 finished

This is a sort of weird minor league golf story.  Parts were interesting, the whole how he grew up with golf and his father and then college golf and then slipping into the minor tour.  There is a storyline with him and a couple other golfers on this tour that is more than a little strange and while some of it was I guess supposed to be humorous, I just thought it tedious instead.  Throw in struggles with his marriage and his mom's strange fascination with Charlestown SC, just wasn't really enjoyable.  I stuck it out just to see how the golf would end up but by end didn't really care about that either.  Oh well.

I have already posted it on PBS and is the only copy in system.  Book was published in 2001 so been around long enough that it probably will sit on my PBS shelf for a while. 

This Country--#102 finished

The rest of the title is: My Life in Politics and History.  This is Chris Matthews that hosted the nightly TV political talking show Hardball for over 20 years.  The book is about his life, growing up, 2 years in Peace Corp rather than fight in Vietnam and then his introduction into politics and then reporting on politics.  Good read about what his perspective of the 1960s, '70s, '80s & '90s especially.  Some good insights on the people in politics at those times.  Good read overall.

There are 2 WL for this book on PBS so will probably post & mail off at some point but again have enough credits right now.  Just waiting for others to post books that I want.

A Reasonable Doubt--#101

This is 3rd in series of Robin Lockwood, a criminal defense lawyer in Portland, OR.  This one is about a slimy magician that with his British accent was able to marry a rich older widow and seemingly committed murder of a couple people too.  Years before Robin was there, her mentor Regina was able to get the magician off because the prosecutor made many mistakes.  Magician disappears for years with mob and widow's family & new wife all upset.  He reappears and while debuting a new trick is murdered.  Robin is hired by the most likely suspect.  The same prosecutor is there and this time Robin solves the case & shows how inept he is.  A good quick read, not a bad series for that.

I have gone ahead and posted this book back onto PBS, it is the only copy in system so might get requested.

A Warrior of the People--#100 finished

This one I finished on 10/30, so 100 books read by end of October, I am pretty happy about that.  This is a book about the life of Susan LaFlesche, she was the first Native American to become a doctor in the US.  She was part of the Omaha tribe, that eventually was settled into Northeast Nebraska, only a county or so away from where I grew up.  I might have heard her name or family name in school but not sure about that.  Would be sad if not because her and some of her siblings were important people in late 1800s early 1900s in our area.  She was mostly educated at different schools out east--a boarding school in New Jersey for high school, Hampton University in Virginia and a Woman's Medical College in Penn.  She got her Doctors degree and went back to the reservation to care of the native people there.  Book is a good read about her life and struggles.  Very glad I read it.

There are WL for this book on PBS but it is a keeper for me.

The Girls in the Wild Fig Tree--#99 finished

The author is from Kenya, a tribe there called Maasai.  A rural kind of nomadic tribe, they raise goats & cows mostly.  The author talks about her life and family.  Her dad was a kind of leader and someone that tried to modernize the tribe--he helped setup a sort of nature preserve where tourists would come and see local wild animals.  He also believed in education and wanted this for his kids.  Both her dad and then mom died while she was young and her relatives that raised her were not as open to this.  This was a very traditional culture where girls were married very young and basically were then tied to the home.  This tribe also practiced what they called the Cut, a severe form of Female Genital Mutilation FGM.  The author saw this done when she was very young and was scared from there of this happening.  When the uncle she was living with wanted this to happen to her, she hid in a tree and then at light ran away.  She ran away a couple times but eventually a grandfather let her avoid this.  For this reason she was kind of shunned at their villages but also was able to continue her education.  She continued on to get her college degree and then started working for a NGO and worked to end FGM in her tribe and became a spokes person for this worldwide.  A really good and uplifting story, glad I read this book.

There are 3 WL for this book on PBS but for now keeping it.  Maybe one of my kids would want to read it.