Hello Everyone in Mattoon , IL
We want to hear from you!
What are you reading and what did you think of it? We want to know and so do other library users.
In conjunction with Summer Reading 2011 we are starting a Reader’s Review Blog. Every book review that you post that is more then 200 words will garner adults an entry into our summer reading grand prize drawing (as long as you are signed up for the Summer Reading Program). If you are not signed up, that okay, you can post as well. But you should still get signed up. You are reading anyway; why not earn rewards for it.
But Be Warned! Any inappropriate comments will be removed! To write a review please add a comment.
Stiff by Mary Roach
ReplyDeleteNon-fiction. This is a very interesting look into dead bodies. Roach covers many different angles concerning what happens to the human body after it dies. One of the main themes running throughout the book is the ethics and morality of how to treat bodies. She discusses the history of using bodies for anatomy and how public opinion has changed in many ways but has stayed the same in others. For example, being in possession of a human cadaver for any reason used to be a crime punishable by severe prison terms. Later, people got into the business of body snatching to sell to researchers. And even today, many people find human dissection a difficult topic.
Roach also covers the decomposition process of the body. I would have preferred a more in-depth review, but she needed space to discuss all the implications such as how we try to stop or slow down the disintegration with embalming.
The idea of a book about human decomposition may sound ghoulish and morbid, yet the areas she covers are fascinating. Two long chapters alone are about how bodies are used to test the safety of cars and to determine how accidents such as plane crashes happened. Also 'the farm', a csi training center is discussed.
So if you are interested in csi or just curious about what happens to the body after death, give this book a try.
The Woman in Black by Susan Hill
ReplyDeleteHere is a good ghost story. The novel begins with an older man looking back to a horrid experience he had as a very young man when he first began work for a law firm. The client was a very old woman, who for years had been a recluse, who died and needed her estate reviewed and assessed.
I liked this ghost story because it was a good old fashioned telling. There is no gore or slashings or possessing of people. Instead, the young man encounters a very angry ghost. The ghost also happens to be incredibly bitter because of something that happened to it in life. The story takes place near the turn of the century (1900) so there is a good period piece feel to the story.
I would have liked to have more on the ghost itself; more depth to its living character and hard life. However, the story doesn't lack because of this. The descriptions are particularly good. I liked the way she created a creepy yet at the same time beautiful lonely setting. And once the man begins his story there is no skipping back and forth in time. The novel stays in the past until the story is finished.
The book is being made into a movie starring Harry Potter, actually Daniel Radcliffe, so I am hoping that it is true to the book.
Olive Kigtteridge by Elizabeth Strout
ReplyDeleteI loved this book. The stories center around the character Olive who is an outspoken no-nonsense woman living in a small town in Maine. (Most people know Maine through Stephen King novels, and it usually is not in a good light.)
The book is divided into different points of view and stories of people in town over the years of Olive's life. Olive plays a part in every story, so it is all tied nicely together into a novel.
Strout does a wonderful job describing the setting and the characters. Some of the stories are funny, but mainly they are contemplative of the lives these people live. Occasionally they are sad.
Olive's life is revealed as far more complicated than we at first see. In the beginning, we get the idea that she is somewhat of a busy body, or a hard person with little feeling for the pains of others. But each story gives us more insight into her own fears and pains through her actions.
There is no underlying mystery or serial killers waiting to be revealed. The book is a beautiful rendering of ordinary people and how they cope with life. Some may find the book a bit dull because it lacks thrilling action, but I personally found it a wonderful read because of the lack of sensationalizing.
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
ReplyDeleteThis is not a book for the faint of heart. None of McCarthy's books are because they are filled with raw violence, despair, and cruelty. So why read this since it sounds terrible?...
It is an astoundingly beautiful apocalyptic story. A father and son are on a journey to find a place to protect the light, the gift that can bring peace and beauty back to mankind. The earth has been bombed. Everything is destroyed: the cities, the land, the waters. These two set out to follow an old highway to a place they have only heard rumors of.
The only food left is canned or the worse alternative when the can goods become more scarce: people. So this father and his young boy must not only endure the stark ugliness of what the world has become, but they also have to avoid all other people. No one can really trust anyone else anymore. Be warned, McCarthy does not shrink at describing how barbaric the world has gotten.
Despite all this grimness, the novel is gorgeously written. McCarthy has a bit of the Hemingway style of writing in succinct sentences that get directly to the point. The style matches the tone and setting of the book perfectly. And in the end though there is no happy ending (how can there be?) there is hope.