Little Girl Blue--#36 finished

The rest of the title is: The Life of Karen Carpenter.  I just finished this book this morning and it is upsetting.  I guess if more was known about anorexia back then she might still be alive today.  She was a very talented singer/musician and was caught in a tough situation with a mother that seemed to favor her brother Richard.  She adored Richard and let him and their mom make most of their decisions and she just had a hard time getting away.  When she did finally meet someone & marry, he was basically a fraud.  Her mental state I guess wanted control and eating became the thing or lack of eating.  A sad story, where while reading it I almost hated the people around her but again it is almost more of a statement of the times--these people loved her but had no answers for what she was going through.

There are 25 WL for the book so I will get it posted & mailed off at some point but will probably find another one to send off first.

Whip It--#35 finished

A high school girl in a small town about hour outside of Austin TX that doesn't fit in with most kids in town and is forced into beauty pageants by her mother, gets on a roller derby team in Austin without her parents knowing it.  I saw the movie first and it was mostly enjoyable--a teenager coming of age kind of story so I ordered the book from PBS and read it once it came in.  Book as different in quiet a few ways from the movie but generally stayed the same story.  It is more young adult/teen book but I enjoyed it.

There are no copies in PBS now--I ordered the only one that was, so I will get this posted & see what happens.

High Plains Tango--#34 finished

This was a pretty good read, I have now read a couple books by Robert James Waller & have enjoyed both of them.  I haven't read his most famous one The Bridges of Madison County but will probably have to get around to it at some point.  This book fits in with that one--not sure if before or after and the jacket mentions that some of the characters do carryover.  A guy that is an artist like carpenter is roaming the country & ends up in small town South Dakota, buys a cheap old 1 room farmhouse & some acres and rebuilds the farmhouse into something amazing for those parts.  Bad politicians have been behind the scenes working on putting an interstate through from Canada to New Orleans and he starts to fight this.  Throw in some Indian burial grounds & legends and a couple ladies and some bad local guys and here it is.  Took a little while to get it moving but was a good story overall.

Already 10 copies in system so this will go to the donate away pile.

God Save the Fan--#33 finished

This is by the guy that started Deadspin, a sports blog that kind of stayed on the outside of sports reporting.  An almost anti-ESPN kind of thing--and anybody that is anti-ESPN has to be alright.  It is an older book published in 2008 so not very timely but still a lot of it holds true still.  Also written with a light touch and some humor so was an easy & quick read.

There is already 1 copy in system so I will still post it but not expecting it to move anytime soon.  My shelf that holds all my posted books for PBS is stuffed so I will need to move a couple out & put them in the donate away pile.

Thomas Hart Benton: A Life--#32 finished

A MO artist that, at least in the state, is probably most known for painting the mural at the capital--I think that is where it is.  He is from an early political family in MO and his father was a federal congressman for a few terms.  Thomas in his early years traveled the state with his dad during campaigns and then was in Washington DC while serving.  He grew up in Neosho, MO down in the SW corner of the state.  He had to kind of fight his parents into letting him study art & painting--they wanted him to be a lawyer and continue with the whole politician thing.  He went to Chicago to study & then to Paris & then to NY.  Those were his formative years and was developing his style.  He eventually ended up in Kansas City & taught there for a while & painted but summers were in MA at Martha's Vineyard area.  Book has a lot of information about him and his painting and his style and arguments with other artists.  An interesting life for sure.  Book at times read more like a textbook though so took a while to get through it.

There are 2 WL for it so I will go ahead and post it today & see if I can get it mailed off tomorrow.

Hot Damn!--#31 finished

I have not heard of James W Hall before, the author.  This is a collection of columns he wrote for a Florida newspaper over 3 years, just about his observations of what was going on around him or in his life I guess.  He was also writing books at this time--I may have to look some of these up.  Not too bad, a nice read that gives you an idea of him and the area of S Florida back in the 1990s at some point.  I finished it a week or so ago & now having a hard time remembering much of this--I remember his search for & finding his house and then hurricane Andrew came through and knocked down trees & damaged the house some.  A casino in the Everglades--Indian run so I guess was kosher and maybe a couple more.  Nothing really that stuck with me but was a nice read.  The title probably gave me more hope than I should have had for this book.

I will go ahead and post it on PBS, there is already 1 copy in the system so I don't expect it to go anywhere but that ol' never know thing.

The Fall of Lisa Bellow--#30 finished

Probably more of a young adult kind of book.  Two middle school girls in the 8th grade end up at the same sub shop after school, one is the most popular girl in school according to the other at least and the other is part of a more nerdy kind of group.  The sub shop is robbed and when the robber is leaving takes the popular girl with him.  The book is basically about the struggles of the other girl and the people around her.  8th grade is already a tough time.  She becomes friends with the popular girls and sort of leaves her old friends out.  Some interaction with the mom of the missing girl as well.  The biggest struggle is the one within her family and especially her mom.  A good read that makes you think and takes you back to that middle school/high school time of struggles.

There are like 3 WL for the book so once things kind of get back to normal, I will post it & mail it off.

IV--#29 finished

This is a book of Chuck Klosterman's articles.  He wrote for Spin magazine and others and this is a bunch of those but is not all about music also has other people & topics.  Overall pretty good, I am not a big music fan so when he gets into actual bands and influences I was lost at times.  You can tell from his writing that he enjoys what he does and that carries over--makes it enjoyable to read.

I will post on PBS, there is 1 or 2 copies already on system so might not go anywhere for a while or ever.

Crucible--#28 finished

This was the next in the Sigma Force series.  This one gets into AI, with a computer program that can grow and think.  It has been developed by a young woman with other professional women assisting and when it was to be first turned out, bad guys invade and kill people and then eventually track down the young girl too and steal her machine.  Of course a kidnapping goes on as well sort of connected but that forces the group to separate.  Bad guys want to throw world back into almost dark ages where the church could rule again--not sure about this but then again this book seemed to take some very large leaps of faith.  Paris gets burned but in the end it all ends up okay except for the AI that supposedly gets destroyed but a time traveling finger at the end makes you question this too.  It was an action read but really didn't care for much of this book.  It is a series so I will continue on with it but could be running out of decent material.

There are 8, 10 or 12--not really sure WL for the book and like earlier entry just not posting anything at this point.  Will post & move once things sort of open up again.

West of Sunset--#27 finished

I really enjoyed this author's book Last Night at the Lobster and was able to get this book on PBS.  It is about F Scott Fitzgerald and his life the last couple years of it, with Zelda in an institution and their daughter at boarding school.  While he is a very famous author now, then he was struggling for money and went to Hollywood and was doing movie scripts to earn a living.  He also had a girlfriend at that time too.  While obviously it cannot be a true account, it puts the reader into the life and you can see the struggles as well as the glamour of Hollywood too.  I good read, I enjoyed it.

I think there are 7 or 8 WL for the book so I will get it posted & mailed off at some point.  Right now with the virus and stay at home orders, not looking to post anything.  I have enough credits & plenty of books on my shelves so not looking to make any unnecessary trips out to the post office.