Johnny Mac Pippin Visited the USS Arizona Today
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Faith Bass Darling’s Last Garage Sale
Well. I liked Faith Bass Darling’s Last Garage Sale but I did not love it. I struggled to read it. Not because it wasn’t good or it was a hard read. I struggled because I expected it to be something it wasn’t.
Funny.
It was not funny.
With a cover like that and a title like that and a setting like that… I thought I was getting a light, summery bit of chic lit.
Nope. Not funny.
I’d probably have loved it if it had been just a little funny. The garage sale had some funny moment opportunities, but nope. Wasn’t funny. I need a few laughs with my serious dysfunctional family, Alzhiemer’s, crisis of faith stories.
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The Great Wall of Lucy Wu
From the Cybils Shortlist, The Great Wall of Lucy Wu – it was cute. Very cute. Also, sweet.
I like that Lucy – short Asian girl – loved basketball. She wanted nothing to do with Chinese school or traditional Chinese food or speaking Chinese (any more than she already spoke Chinese.) I also love that her parents finally came around to her basketball playing – because it’s good for her to develop leadership skills. I also like that Lucy understood that this was not really the reason she had hoped her parents would come around.
And of course, I love the relationship that Lucy developed with her Aunt. I just with her Aunt had shot a few hoops with her – that would have made the story even better.
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The Acropolis
I finished The Acropolis, the first book in a new series by RK Ryals – I wrote about it over at BlogHer. #TeamGargoyle!
Retribution — the final book in the Redemption series
I finished Retribution on my iPhone yesterday – and wrote about it in the BlogHer Book Chat group.
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Museums Matter
Museums Matter, written by James Cuno (former president and director of the Art Institute of Chicago) is pretty much what you’d expect it to be – a response to those who believe museums have outlived their usefulness. A wee bit of a stuffy response, as is to be expected.
But, lurking in between the somewhat dry paragraphs, were some thought provoking ideas and questions.
It took me about four hours longer than it should have, to read this book, because I kept putting it down to think about museums I’ve visited and I kept putting it down to ask TW questions about her own museum visits.
How much do you think about the hows and whys of museum displays and organization? Do you ever stop to wonder whether you’re seeing the displays as the curator hopes you are? Do you ever feel like the curator is forcing his (or her) ideas on you, by choosing a particular layout or design? Do you ever feel like you’re being fed propaganda rather than being left to sort ideas and discoveries out for yourself?
If you were going to design a room in a museum, would you select pieces and place them in ways that allowed them to work together to tell a larger story – or would you display them in some other way? When you visit a museum are conscious of the greater story being told through the display choices? Does it really matter to you at all?
And of course, now I’m craving a museum visit (or two.)
Girlchild
I love the cover of Girlchild. I love the title, too. I also really liked the Girl Scout theme that runs through the book. I liked everything about this book – except the completely depressing fact that it’s about poor women (and children) – which of course means it’s a story about abuse and neglect and alcohol and poverty. Set in Reno.
Depressing, sad, frustrating – but well written and interesting. I loved Rory and her mom and her grandmother.
11/23/63
It felt like it took weeks to read Stephen King’s 11/23/63 but it really just took three days – which seems pretty good for an 800+ page book, when sometimes it takes me three days to read a 300 page book. Heh. That’s what happens with Stephen King, I pretty much can’t put it down.
If you could step back in time and stop the assassination of JFK, would you do it? And if you did it and discovered that the world was in even worse shape after you did it – would you go back and undo it? And would you undo it and leave everything the way it was, even if people you cared about were hurt – and you could never be with them again?
And, do you think Oswald acted alone?
Good book. Creepy story, in a lot of ways – but not as creepy as King can be. I liked it – a lot.