kapachino

Category: books & reading

  • favorite nonfiction books

    I use Grammarly’s grammar check because although you might not be able to tell from the way I look when I drop Meredith off at daycare right now or the frequency of baths taken around here, I DO have some standards.

    I read a whole lot more fiction than nonfiction, so when I do read it I try to make it the good stuff. A lot of the nonfiction books I read are faith-related, but since I’ve already written about my favorite books on faith I didn’t include any of those on this list. Here are the ones I absolutely loved.

    favorite nonfiction books1

    Nicholas & Alexandra by Robert K. Massie – This biography of the last Tsar of Russia and his wife really is a case where truth is stranger than fiction. So much drama and intrigue and I loved every word.

    Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand – The subtitle says this is “A World War II story of survival, resilience, and redemption,” and that’s a perfect way to describe it. I cannot even believe what this man went through and the way that his life was transformed.

    And the Sea Will Tell by Vincent Bugliosi – My husband is a true crime fanatic, so that means I don’t have to wade through all the junk (because a lot of that genre really is terrible) and can go straight to the good stuff. He says this is the best true crime book he’s ever read, and it was completely riveting to me too. It’s unique in that the author was also the defense attorney and the evidence was seemingly insurmountable.

    favorite nonfiction books2

    Great With Child by Beth Ann Fennelly – In a different vein, this is a memoir about motherhood in the format of letters written to an expectant mother that is gorgeous and poetic and just perfect.

    Columbine by Dave Cullen – An account of the Columbine shootings, the boys that did it and their families, and the community. It was researched for ten years, the story is fascinating and in-depth, and the author is even witty. My eyes were opened.

    The Hot Zone by Richard Preston – This might have been the first real nonfiction book I ever read. It’s the retelling of a near-outbreak of a strain of Ebola virus in the U.S. and I felt like it could have been the screenplay to a movie. It was intense and thrilling and for a long time afterward I was terrified of this disease.

    Your turn! I have more fiction books on my to-read list than I know what to do with, but I’d love more nonfiction recommendations. What are your favorites?

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    This post was sponsored by Grammarly, but all opinions are my own.

  • favorite books i read in 2013

    This is the best wrap-up of last year that I have in me this year. It was a year, things happened, life is about to change a lot, and through it all I was reading books. Here are my favorites.

    top books of 2013_edited-1

    The Passage by Justin Cronin: This is not the kind of book that I would normally just pick up, but it was a book club pick and I’m so glad. To me, it had it all and I got seriously invested in the characters. This reminds me that I need to read the sequel ASAP.

    Abhorsen by Garth Nix: Just one of the best and most unique young adult fantasy series I’ve ever read, and the awesomeness of this finale to the trilogy can’t be overstated. I highly recommend the audio version.

    Katherine by Anya Seton: If all historical fiction were like this, I would read so much more of it. I just loved it all even though it had a lot of tragic parts.

    A Storm of Swords by George R.R. Martin: A large part of my year was spent reading the first three of this series that starts with A Game of Thrones. I liked it right away, but it took me about halfway into the first book to really love it. After that I was all in. This third in the series was the best yet and it prompted many heated discussions with fellow fans at work.

    Wild by Cheryl Strayed: I read this memoir in two days, which is super fast for me. It has adventure and emotion and fantastic writing, and it made me want to be better.

    Honorable mentions: Moby-Dick by Herman Melville (I finally conquered it and it was so great, way better than I expected, except for the boring parts about whaling that I had to skim), Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein (it just gets better and better and by the end I wanted to start it over from the beginning), and The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater (super interesting fantasy with outstanding narration if you listen to the audio).

    Have you read any of these? What were the best books you read this year?

  • what i read : october to december 2013

    Skulduggery Pleasant by Derek Landy: This is a fun read for October because it’s a little bit dark but not too heavy. It takes place mostly in our world’s Dublin and the magic is unknown to most people. The characters are different and interesting. (3 stars, audiobook)

    ArchEnemy (Looking Glass Wars #3) by Frank Beddor: A fun and satisfying conclusion to this spinoff series of Alice in Wonderland. (4 stars, audiobook)

    The Disappearing Spoon by Sam Kean: There’s tons of interesting stuff here but I was hoping it’d be heavier on the anecdote side and lighter on the science detail side but that wasn’t the case. If you’re really into chemistry or physics you’d probably enjoy this but I’ve never taken a physics class and it’s been near ten years since I’ve taken a chemistry class and about half this book was over my head. (2 stars)

    The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater:  I loved this. A different sort of fantasy than I usually read, with a focus on psychics and supernatural energy and lay lines. There are a lot of likable and interesting characters. No real resolution in this first installation, but it also wasn’t completely unsatisfactory. I definitely look forward to reading the next, and I will definitely do the audio because Will Patton as narrator is amazing. (4 stars, audiobook)

    A Storm of Swords by George R.R. Martin: SO MUCH HAPPENS. It is the best of the series so far. Parts of it were shocking and took me days to recover from. I am enjoying all the storylines right now and like to think about how they will intersect each other. (5 stars)

    Princess Academy by Shannon Hale: Sweet and satisfying. Love the full cast audio. (4 stars, audiobook)

    Daisy Fay and the Miracle Man by Fannie Flagg: All of the characters are vivid and likeable. Daisy Fay has a strong voice and is extremely endearing. This is a really easy read and I enjoyed it all. (4 stars)

    The Duke and I by Julia Quinn: One of the editors of Book Riot talks a lot about how she’s been reading a lot of romance over the past year because she wasn’t previously familiar with the genre. I guess she got me interested in seeing what it was like because I had never read a romance novel before so I decided to for the heck of it. I don’t have anything to really compare this one too, but it was a fun escape and pretty much what I expected. (3 stars)

    I’m also so close to finishing Longbourn by Jo Baker which is awesome, but I didn’t quite make it. Soon I’ll share with you my favorite reads of the year so stay tuned!

  • what i read : july to september 2013

    I go through phases with my hobbies and right now reading is sort of on the backburner as I’m spending time crafting and fixing up the house, but with audiobooks and reading a little bit every day I still make progress. I have a feeling the last few months of the year will be even lighter on number of books read, but during the third quarter I managed nine. Here they are:

    The Farthest Shore by Ursula K. LeGuin: Some really great fantasy here. Enjoyed the old characters and the new. (4 stars)

    Seating Arrangements by Maggie Shipstead: Smart and entertaining summery read. The characters are kind of tragic but also hopeful. (3 stars)

    Insurgent by Veronica Roth : Liked it, maybe not quite as much as the first, but it’s still one of the better YA dystopian series I’ve read. (audiobook, 3 stars)

    Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver: Great writing and characterization as usual, but preachy and kind of boring. (2 stars; full review here)

    The 7 Experiment by Jen Hatmaker: This was a Bible study and workbook as well, but I mostly just read it. I loved just about everything about it. Jen is funny and self-deprecating and approaches really serious, difficult topics in a completely non-judgmental way. It made me see that there is a lot about my life that I want to change, but it didn’t make me feel guilty because there is so much grace in here as well. I just saw opportunities for progress toward where I want to be when it comes to simplicity and cutting back on excess and being generous. I was inspired and uplifted and I will probably go back and reread it when I am prepared to challenge myself in a similar way that she did. (5 stars)

    A Clash of Kings by George R.R. Martin: Still really enjoying this series and am seriously hooked. (4 stars)

    Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein : Super good the whole way through but it picks up a LOT during the second half when some details are revealed. Portrait of a wartime friendship that was just heartbreaking and lovely. (audiobook, 4 stars)

    You Are One Of Them by Elliott Holt: This story seemed straightforward but as it went on became more and more complicated and you realize there are secrets and spies and all kinds of possibilities. It got better in my mind the more I thought about it. (4 stars)

    Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling: Reread this for the first time in nearly ten years and it was even better than I remembered. I definitely cried out of happiness at the end. (audiobook, 5 stars)

    The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart: A smart and fun YA book that featured a strong and ambitious female character. Enjoyed a great deal. (audiobook, 4 stars)

  • book club : flight behavior by barbara kingsolver

    My monthly book club meetings are mostly just me and one of my friends, although occasionally attended by some other peeps, and we constantly reach out to other friends but no one else has seemed to stick. I do wish it were a little bigger and more formal, but I still like it as-is because I get to catch up with my friend who I otherwise probably wouldn’t see much, and we still choose books which gives us something to talk about and I usually end up reading something I otherwise wouldn’t have.

    I try really hard to finish the book on time because it’s a great incentive to finishing, and also in seven years I have never NOT finished a book so my streak is very built up in my mind. Anyway, I’m glad I had the incentive this time because otherwise I probably would have abandoned Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver.

    flight behavior

    First let’s talk about the good things. Barbara Kingsolver. I am a fan of hers. The Poisonwood Bible is still one of my faves and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle was an inspiring and enlightening food memoir (mostly) about eating local. So I knew I loved her writing and it’s the reason I agreed to read this book even though it seemed kind of boring from the description. The plus is that the writing is still awesome. Character development, awesome. Sense of atmosphere, clear setting, movement of the story even though not a whole lot happened – all that is definitely there. And there’s a ton of symbolism and literary stuff going on if you like that kind of thing. I do like it, and appreciated it, even though I didn’t take the time to fully mull it over or analyze it.

    Now here’s the reason I only gave this book two out of five stars: it got preachy like whoa. I expect that (to an extent) in a memoir, but I do NOT like it in my fiction, no thank you. I am pro having a moral or a message in a story or in the background, but in this book there is a CLEAR agenda and at times I felt like I was in a classroom or in environmental church, if that was a thing.

    Okay, so I didn’t know the book was about climate change until I had it in my hands and read the inside flap, and I was kind of turned off from the beginning. Now let me say that I am aware of the big problem that is climate change even though I don’t keep up to date with the science, and I avoid politically charged stuff because I hate controversy, and although I guess I understand why it’s controversial (money, etc) I figure that not only is it common sense to take care of the earth, there are plenty of Biblical reasons to do so as well. It’s just the right thing to do, so I try to. I fail a lot, but baby steps, you know? All that to say I’m pretty on board with Kingsolver’s message and I was still turned off by the idea of a whole fiction book about climate change.

    This is what she does. There is a main character, Dellarobia, who is a poverty-stricken lady stuck in a marriage (and family, by extension, since she has no family of her own) and a life situation that she never intended to be in, even though she acknowledges that it is of her own making and good things have come of it. She is for the most part ignorant about the wider world apart from her small town in Appalachia. She discovers this phenomenon of an enormous colony of monarch butterflies that have changed their migration from Mexico to her family’s farmland, and at first she is just inspired and overwhelmed by its beauty and it causes her to want to be a better wife/mother/daughter-in-law/etc.

    So THEN a scientist shows up to study the butterflies by name of Ovid Byron, and he is extremely likable and caring and earnest and sympathetic to the reader. Dellarobia practically falls in love with him and we are meant to, also. So Ovid Byron becomes Barbara Kingsolver’s mouthpiece for her message, and Dellarobia is the willing audience, soaking it all up and learning and changing for the better. It was pretty obvious. There were huge chunks of conversations about ecology and why it was all such a big deal, and I just got tired of it. Plus there was a lot of descriptions of farming and maybe it’s just because I’ve been addicted to the Game of Thrones books lately which are the opposite of this, but I was so ready for it to be done.

    And then I was done, and because she’s such a good writer I still had an emotional response and felt sad and hopeful at the same time. And a lot of people really like it, so. Do with that what you will.