Walk in the Light and Twenty-Three Tales--#8 finished

This is a Leo Tolstoy short story book.  Lots of religious talk and themes running through the stories. Really overall interesting reading but not so exciting that I really had to read.  It was more of a book on the side kind of thing.  I think I started it in Nov and just now finishing it, it got set aside for days & probably a week or so here and there.  That is one of the things with my reading short stories, once I finish a story, that usually becomes a break for me & I jump to other books I am reading.  His epic novels are much more interesting to me than were these short stories but obviously because he is one of my favorite writers, I am glad I read this book.

This is a Tolstoy work so it is on my keeper shelf.

A Girl Called Vincent--#7 finished

The rest of the title is: The Life of Poet Edna St Vincent Millay.  She was born in 1892 and died in 1950 and in between was a major poet in the US.  I should say at least according to this book, I have to admit I had not heard of her before reading this book.  Her mom gave her St Vincent as a middle name because her brother had just recovered from some illness or something at a St Vincent hospital and decided that so even though Edna was her first name Vincent is who she really became known as.    She was lively & often outspoken, she seemed to challenge the norms of the day from as a pre-teen when she started writing poems and basically taking care of her younger sisters growing up.  She became an embodiment of the 1920s with her work and early feminist and also spent time in Paris like so many other artist types then.  This was an interesting read and a very interesting person and writer.  I will try to track down some of her books as well--just went on PBS & ordered one.

There is 1 WL for this book and I will post this & try to mail off right away.

Beautiful Eyes--#6 finished

This is a book by a dad of a daughter with Down Syndrome & the rest of the title is A Father Transformed.  He is a doctor & his wife was a nurse and that fact their daughter Sarah had Down Syndrome was a surprise for them.  He goes through his thoughts and feelings on this & also a lot of the history of how Down Syndrome was first figured out in the 1800s and then the genetic components with the chromosomes and finding that out.  It was fun hearing about his daughter growing up & seeing similarities with my son.  He towards the end of the book has realized he now sees just his daughter for who she is and not so much her disability.  I enjoyed the book, was an honest look at his daughter and his family.

There are 11 WL for this book on PBS so I will probably mail off at some point.  Could also donate out to others, not really sure yet.

The Underworld--#5 finished

The author takes a true happening where a silver mine in a small town in Idaho in the early 1970s had a fire and 91 miners died.  He takes this happening and weaves a story around some fictional people and what happened and how they dealt with it.  I have enjoyed the books by Kevin Canty that I have read and this is another good one.  Really good characters and their interactions.  A really tough and hard story knowing it really happened and these stories were probably pretty close to how some of the people dealt with it.

There are 9 WL for the book so will get it posted & moved at some point.

The Guardians--#4 finished

The newest John Grisham lawyer book.  A lawyer that also is an Episcopal preacher.  He really only practices law now for a small firm that only looks at freeing people that were wrongly convicted.  Like all Grisham is a good quick read with a lot of things going on.  He has a few cases he is working but takes on a new one that even though the guy has been in prison for 22 years, when they start to work it, the bad guys still come out on it.  Eventually with help from FBI and others are able to free the guy and make some arrests of the bad guys.  A good story overall.

This is one I am pulling out of PBS & will instead donate it to a silent auction basket at church on an upcoming event.

Stripes of the Sidestep Wolf--#3 finished

The tough life of a small town in Australia that has been passed by the highway and is slowly dying.  The story revolves around a husband wife and their son.  The husband just kind of lost it & has quit working life saying God will provide.  Wife struggles working and son has hard time finding work too & doesn't want to move out of town like many others do.  The town is near a volcano that is not active & while he is there collecting wood, sees a wolf with stripes.  He mentions this to a kind of crazy girl and she researches it as a thylacine, a Tasmanian tiger that is now believed to be extinct.  A good read with interesting characters that also makes you think about these areas/small towns that are slowly dying out.

I have posted it on PBS, it is the only copy so I hope at some point it will get ordered & mailed out.

Birdseye--#2 finished

This is about Clarence Birdseye who innovated the whole frozen food industry & helped turn it into the huge deal that it is today.  He led an interesting life growing up outside New York city, hunting in Montana for ticks to help understand & develop cure for Rocky Mountain fever.  Time in New Mexico & Washington DC, then moving to Newfoundland/Labrador hunting, fishing & raising foxes for the pelts.  Then at Glouster MA developing the frozen food technology and then light bulb enhancements, tried dehydrated foods and then near end of life in Peru working to develop paper from sugar cane stocks.  Good read and interesting person.

I have posted it on PBS, it is the only copy in system so I hope it will get moved at some point.

Pharaoh's Friend--#1 finished

This was a book sitting on my shelf for a number of years.  I picked it up at a library sale and I think the only reason was because the author bio mentions she was born in St Louis but now lives in Houston.  Doesn't mentioned when she moved or the St Louis question of what high school she went to but still kind of a local author.  The story is kind of weird, not bad but just weird.  A couple loses their young daughter and the mom is the focus of the story & she is having a real hard time coming to terms with things in her life.  Throw in a trip to Egypt and large cats in Egypt that get shipped to TX and then Houston that she is also dreaming about and makes for kind of a strange story.  The pain of the mom and also the troubles of the people around her are evident as well.  Not a great read but some interesting characters.  Thought the whole ending was maybe rushed, just trying to find an end. Oh well.

I will probably post this on PBS, even with her as a sort of local author, no reason to make it a keeper.  Is the only book she has written at least listed in PBS.  There is already 1 copy in system so don't see this one moving anytime soon.

Glasshouse--#87 finished

I finished this one late on New Years Eve, I wanted to get my 87th book read for this year--this ties the most read in a year for me.  I don't know how I did it but I did, don't think I can top it but would be nice to do so.  This is a sci-fi book set way in future with humans but people after getting mind wiped that clear lots but not all memories and then the people get put into 1990 to 2010 time period.  Also gender changes for some of the people.  Interesting from that point but also past memories coming back too.  Then the people running this experiment have bad intentions and the hero in this along with a group find a way to overthrow these bad guys but are stuck in the experiment for a long period of time--time was figured differently with different terms and I could never keep it straight--might have been a few lifetimes or maybe 30 to 90 years, not really sure.

Good read with some interesting thoughts and interesting what the author sees as a future.  I will probably post it but I think there are 1 or 2 copies in system already.

The next post will start the list for 2020, hope to get one finished this weekend.

X--#86 finished

This & the next book to be logged in were finished in 2019 but just now getting them into this blog.  This is the next in Sue Grafton's Kinsey Milhone series, with only 1 book left to read, I am already missing this series.  I will try to finish up soon and enjoy the finish.  I am already kind of looking forward to re-reading the series at some point too, I have kept the books so have this full series on my shelf.  This book had a few different things going on with a simple case turning into marked bills and her getting taken by the client and having to basically investigate the client & her ex-husband being involved too.  Then crazy neighbors that sneaked in & basically took over the house without telling the owners & being pains as well as criminals.  Then also working a case from a private detective that died and Kinsey is now friends with the widow, the case went back years & was scary with murder & Kinsey being threatened too.  Good read like all the books in this series.

This joins the keeper shelf along with rest in this series for me.