Book: March

 Book: March

Author: John Lewis

Pages: 128

This is my 34th read for the year

What Amazon Says:

Congressman John Lewis is an American icon, one of the key figures of the civil rights movement.  His commitment to justics and nonviolence has taken him from an Alabama sharecropper's farm to the halls of Congress, from a segregated schoolroom to the 1963 March on Washington, and from receiving beatings from state troopers to receiving the Medal of Freedom from the 1st African-American president.  Now, to share his remarkable story with new generations, Lewis presents March, a graphic novel.  March is a vivid first hand account of John Lewis' lifelong struggle for civil and human rights, meditating in the modern age on the distance traveled since the days of Jim Crow and segregation.  Rooted in Lewis' personal story, it also reflects on the highs and lows of the broader civil rights movement.  This book spans John Lewis' youth in rural Alabama, his life-changing meeting with MLK Jr the birth of the Nashville Student Movement, and their battle to teat down segregation through nonvilent lunch counter sit-ins, building to a stunning clamax on the steps of City Hall.  Many years ago, John Lewis and other student activits drew inspiration from the 1958 comic book "MLK and the Montgomery Story"  Now his own comics bring those day to life for a new audience.

This was a good book.  I read it for a reading challenge, and it has been on one of my daughter's bookshelf for awhile.  (she read it).  It is a quick read, but covers a lot of ground and is well done.  I think it would be a good book for middle grade to learn about John Lewis and how he became the activist he is.  There are 2 more books in the series that continue with his work as an adult.  Check this one out.

Stars: 4.

Book: Madly, Deeply the diary of Alan Rickman

 Book: Madly, Deeply the Diary of Alan Rickman

Author: Alan Rickman

Pages: 480

This is my 33rd read for the year

What Amazon Says:

From his breakout role in Die Hard to his outstanding, multifaceted permormances in the Harry Potter films, Galaxy Quest, Robin Hood and more, Alan Rickman cemented his legacy as a world-class actor.  His air of dignity, his sonorous voice, and the knowing wit he brought to each role continue to captivate audiences today.  But Rickman's ability to breathe life into projects wasn't confined to just his performances.  As you'll find, Rickman's diaries detail the extraordinary and the ordinary, flitting between wordly and witty and gossipy, while remaining utterly candid throughout.  He takes us inside his home, on trips with friends across the globe, and on the sets of films nd plays ranging from Sense and Sensibility, to Private lives, to the final film he directed, A Little Chaos.  Running from 1993 to his death in 2016, the diaries provide singular insight into Rickman's public and private life.  Reading them is like listening to Rickman chatting to a close companion.  Meet Rickman the consummate professional actor, but also the friend, the traveler, the fan, the director, the enthusiast; in short, the man beyond the icon.

This was a good book.  It was a little tedious - and it is LONG.  He was an avid journalist with small bits of quips and info from his day to day, but not sure it needed to be made into a book.  I would have loved it more if it was.....more.  It would have been better in biography format.  Most of it was not that interesting.  I did find that he didn't have a lot of love for Harry Potter or the final director of those films - Daivd Yates.  Did I learn a lot about Alan Rickman from this book?  No.  Would I suggest you read it?  Probably not.

STars: 3.

Book: The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County

 Book: The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County

Author: Mark Twain

Pages: 123

This is my 32nd read for the year

Read this one for the Rory Gilmore reading challenge

Stars: 3.5

Book: The Children's Blizzard

 Book: The Children's Blizzard

Author: David Laskin

Pages: 307

This s my 31st read for the year

What Amazon Says:

The gripping true story of an epic prairie snowstorm that killed hundreds of newly arrived settlers and case a shadow on the promise of the American frontier.  January 12, 1888 began as an useasonably warm morning across Nebraska, the Dakotas, and Minnesota, the weather so mild that children walked to school without coats and gloves.  But that afternoon, without warning, the atmosphere suddenly, violently changed.  One moment the air was calm; the next the sky exploded in a raging chaos of horizontal snow and hurricane-force winds.  Temperatures plunged as an unprecedented cold front ripped through the center of the continent.  By the morning, some 500 people lay dead on the drifted prairie, many of them children who had perished on their way home from country schools.  In a few terrifying hours, the hopes of the pioneers had been blasted by the bitter realitites of their harsh environment.  Recent immigrants from Germany, Norway, Denmark, and the Ukraine learned that their free homestead was not a paradise but a hard unforgiving place governed by natural forces they neither understood nor controlled.

This was a good book. Hard to read the reality of what the people went through.  I had read the Historical Fiction version of this story a few years ago, and was interested to read more about it.  The parts of this book that are personal accounts of the families was heartbreaking and the best parts of this book.  The other parts about weather and thoughts on how this storm came about were a bit dry.  But overall a good book.

Stars: 4 

Book: Letters To A Young Poet

 Book: Letters To A Young Poet

Author: Rainer Maria Rilke

Pages: 81

This is my 30th read for the year

What Amazon Says:

At the start of the 20th century, Rainer Maria Rilke wrote a series of letters to a young officer cadet, advising him on writing, love, sex, suffering, and the nature of advice itself.  These profound and lyrical letters have since become hugely influential for generations of writers and artists of all kinds, including Lady Gage, Patti Smith.  With honesty, elegeance, and a deep understanding of the loneliness that often comes with being an artist, Rilke's letters are an endless source of inspiration and comfort.  

Read for a reading challenge

Stars: 4

Book: The Fall Risk

 Book: The Fall Risk

Author: Abby Jimenez

Pages: 81

This is my 29th read for the year

What Amazon Says:

It's Valentine's Day weekend, and Charlotte and Set are not looking for romance.  Armed with emotional-support bear spray, Charlotte is in self-imposed isolation and on guard from men.  Having a stalker can do that to a person's nerves.  Just across the hall and giving off woodsy vibes is Seth, a recently divorced arborist.  As in today recently.  Heights, he's fine with.  Trust?  Not so uch.  But when disaster traps them one flight up and no way down, an outrageously precarious predicament forces a tree-loving guy and a rattled girl next door to embrace their captivity.  Soon their defenses are breaking away.  Considering how close they both are to the edge, Charlotte and SEth could be in danger of falling - in love.  

This book was fine.  It is a free short read from Amazon that I had, and fit a book challenge, so I read it.  I like Abby's books well enough.  This one didn't really go far since it was a short story.  Things move way too fast between these two basically strangers for her to give him all the details she did.  I won't go further - this isn't my favorite genre, so I am not a good judge of these books.

Stars: 3

Book: Eleven Numbers

 Book: Eleven Numbers

Author: Lee Child

Pages: 50

This is the 28th read for the year

What Amazon Says:

Nathan Tyler is an unassuming professor at a middling American university with a rather obscure specialty in mathematics - in short, a nobody from nowhere.  So why is the White House calling?  Summoned to Washington, DC, for a top-secret briefing, Nathan discovers that he's the key to a massive foreign intelligence breakthrough.  Reading between the lines of a cryptic series of equations, he could open a door straight into the heart of the Kremlin and change the global balance of power forever.  All he has to do is get to a meeting with the renowned Russian mathematician who created it.  But when Nathan crashes headlong into a dangerous new game, the oddes against him suddently look a lot steeper.

This book was fine.  Believe it or not, I have not read any Lee Child books - my husband has read all of them.  This came up as a free short read on Amazon, so I thought I would give it a go.  The characters were fine and the story moved along just fine.  Have I said the word fine enough in this review yet?  There was a lot of math.  Not particularly exciting.  Not sure this would make me want to try his Reacher stories (which this was not).

Stars: 3