Erik Larson | NonfictionThunderstruck, the interwoven stories of Guglielmo Marconi, credited with the invention of the wireless, and Hawley Crippen, a physician, perhaps eventual murderer, isn’t Dead Wake or Devil in the White City. I was disappointed that the narrative lacked a strong sense of mystery and urgency. Thunderstruck read more like history than narrative…
Rakesh Satyal | FictionThis is the Deschutes County Library 2018 community read. And so I really WANT to give it four hearts, but it doesn’t quite slide into that category for me. No One Can Pronounce My Name is the story of Indian-Americans living in Cleveland. Some lived in India earlier in their lives; some…
Phil Knight | MemoirShoe Dog is fun! It certainly doesn’t read like an autobiography of a mucky-muck corporate exec, Founder, CEO. And yet, it is! I love the way Knight laughs at himself, shares his faux pas and mistakes, his weirdness, his worries. As a professional coach of entrepreneurs I was intrigued by his lack…
Timothy Snyder | NonfictionThis tiny book is big on making one think. It is only 126 small pages. The author, Timothy Snyder, is a Professor of History at Yale University and has written numerous historical books. On Tyranny is 20 lessons. In each lesson, 1-9 pages long, he writes of a historical event — tyrannical…
Mark Sullivan | Literary Nonfiction, Creative Nonfiction, Biographical and Historical Fiction …. WHATEVER!!!!Pino Lella, at seventeen years old, led Italian Jews across the snow-capped Alps to safety in Switzerland., wearing hiking boots and skis. And then he became a spy for the Allies in the resistance. This is his story – 23 months of his…
Jodi Picoult | FictionIntense. This book begins light and easy. Sage Singer is a baker; you can almost smell (but not quite taste!) the delicious breads and pastries she bakes every night. One day an elderly man walks into the bakery and Sage and Josef strike up a conversation and then an unlikely friendship. Nice…
William Kent Krueger | FictionI remember one event clearly from the summer I was 13. I went to Bob-Lo Island, an amusement park on an island in the Detroit River, and met my first love, Randy. What do YOU remember about the summer you were 13? Well, this book is the summer Frank Drum was…
Scarlett Thomas | FictionOK, I give up. I have been trying for four days and 80 pages to get into this book. I find the characters completely meaningless. Bryony, for example, is obsessed with her weight … not obsessed with losing it, just obsessed with it; with feeding it; with how well her husband bakes;…
John McPhee | Non-FictionI was delighted by this book from the very first page. McPhee’s writing is like having a conversation over coffee. It is easy, engaging, curious, unhurried.Before I opened this book, I thought I had made a mistake. Other travelers give you books to read before you travel somewhere. I received an extensive…
Dominic Smith | FictionI really like the story line of The Last Painting of Sara de Vos. Sara de Vos is a not-very-prolific painter in Amsterdam in 1631, and the first woman master painter in the Guild of St. Luke. Centuries later, 1957, Ellie Shipley is a struggling art student in New York City, when…