The Host by Stephenie Meyer

This was excellent fluff: the paperback, when it comes out, will be the perfect beach book. I like the way Meyer hints at LDS worldview (not doctrine!) in her books and plays with it. (I also like Uncle Jeb, who is clearly your crazy Mormon uncle who likes Bo Gritz and makes obnoxious comments in Sunday School. He even uses the boiling frog story in the book!)

My Grandfather's Son : A Memoir by Clarence Thomas

Derrick and I listened to this. Thomas always sounds like Eeyore, no matter what he is talking about. But this was a good listen, an interesting story.

Another Day in the Frontal Lobe : A Brain Surgeon Exposes Life on the Inside by Katrina Firlik

A very enjoyable, quick read. I always like medical memoirs.

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle

My husband read this out loud to the older boys and me. I didn't love the story, but I loved stitching while listening to him read. I thought the story was lame, actually.

Eats, Shoots & Leaves : The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss

I like the idea of someone who gets angry about punctuation.

Three more YA titles

I was making a list of books for a dear friend and I realized that I have forgotten to blog about a few books that I have read to the boys over the last little while; all are worth reading.



Dave at Night by Gail Carson Levine




Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis



Incredible Journey by Sheila Every Burnford

The Titan's Curse (Percy Jackson and the Olympians Series #3) by Rick Riordan

I had to read 100 pages out loud yesterday, but we finished this just in time to attend the release party of book #4 at BookPeople today--with Rick Riordan! The kids are so excited they can't stand it. I may be a little excited, too.

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

So normally, I get completely engrossed in a novel and then am disappointed in the ending. This was different: the suspense was amazing and then the climax was fascinating and incredibly thought-provoking. There is a lot to discuss with this one but I don't want to give anything away. Someone please read this and then talk to me about it . . .

The Library at Night by Alberto Manguel

Boring. (And lots of typos.)

A Voyage Long and Strange : Rediscovering the New World by Tony Horwitz

Horowitz's Confederates in the Attic
is one of my all-time favorite books and so I had been looking forward to this for months and it ended up being one big fat honking boring disappointment.

Peony in Love : A Novel by Lisa See

I didn't particularly like this. I did think the fact that Chinese traditions about the afterlife were treated as true was neat, but the story didn't do much for me.

The Bin Ladens : An Arabian Family in the American Century by Steve Coll

This was very interesting, but at almost 600 pages, a little bit of a slog. I appreciated that the book wasn't mostly about Osama but his siblings (who are fascinating in the way that all big-spending Saudis are) with a good bit of the history of Saudi Arabia thrown in. Recommended.

The Sea of Monsters by Rick Riordan

I read this to the boys and we all loved it.

The House at Riverton by Kate Morton

As is typical for me, I became completely absorbed in this but then felt vaguely unsatisfied when it was done. The plot was hole-ly and I'm not always particularly quick on the uptake, but the protagonist was dumb as a post to not figure out the mystery of her birth 300 pages before she finally did.

Mormon Scientist by Henry Eyring

This was disappointing: there were a few good nuggets in here (including a taste of his disagreement with Joseph Fielding Smith over evolution) but overall it felt padded--material repeated from the preface to the intro to the first chapter, lengthy explanations of things like the plan of salvation, long references to Eyring's genealogy. But really not enough about him.

Sister Bernadette's Barking Dog : The Quirky History and Lost Art of Diagramming Sentences by Kitty Burns Florey

A short, lightweight, and goofy history of sentence diagramming. I wish it had been meatier, but it was mildly entertaining.

March by Geraldine Brooks

I'm still thinking about this one. I'm not sure if I find the story plausible, in the sense that I wonder if the main character really would have done what he did. And I also wonder about his consoler--whether she should have felt guilty for what she did. (I'm trying not to give too much away here . . . ) Anyway, I guess I just didn't think that the book held together.

The Lightning Thief (Percy Jackson and the Olympians Series #1) by Rick Riordan

I read this to the boys and we all loved it. Highly recommended.

The Undercover Economist : Exposing Why the Rich Are Rich, the Poor Are Poor and Why You Can Never Buy a Decent Used Car! by Tim Harford

I listened to this on our trip. The first part was a little dull (but would be a good primer for someone who didn't know anything about markets) but the rest was very interesting and I recommend it for anyone interested in an economic (as opposed to ideological) approach to health care, globalization, poverty, etc. Recommended.

Digital Fortress by Dan Brown

This was so lame. So very, very lame. And poorly written.