Book: Orbital

 Book: Orbital

Author: Samantha Harvey

Pages: 200

This is my 8th read for the year

What Amazon says:

Orbital snapshots one day in the lives of six women and men traveling through space.  Selected for one of the last space station missions of its kind before the program is dismantled, these astronauts and cosmonatus - from America, Russia, Italy, Britain, and Japan -have lef ttheir lives behind to travel at the speed of over seventeen thousand miles an hour as the earth reels below.  We glimpse moments of their earthly lives through brief communications with family, their photos and talismans; we watch them whip up dehydrated meals, float in gravity-free sleep, and exercise in regimented routines to prevent atrophying muscles; we witness them form bonds that will stand between them and utter solitude.  Most of all, we are with them as they behold and record their silent blue planet.  Their experiences of sixteen sunrises and sunsets and the bright, blinking constellations of the galaxy are at once breathtakingly awesome and surprsingly intimate. 

This was a pretty interesting book.  First - the cover is beautiful.  It is a very small book and a very quick read.  I read it in a day.  There is no plot and took me a bit to realize this was going to be the whole book.  It is more of a stream of consciousness about view of the earth from space and what the astronauts saw happening as they circled it again and again.  For a book like that - it could have been even shorted - maybe around 100-150 pages.  After awhile it seemed repetative.  That being said - there were some beautiful sentences and take aways from the book that I am glad I read it.

Stars: 3.5

Book: The Guernsey Literary Potato Peel Pie Society

 Book: The Guernsey Literary Potato Peel Pie Society

Author: Mary Anne Shaffer

Pages: 290

This is my 7th read for the year

What Amazon says:

January 1946: London is emerging from the shadow of the Second World War, and writer Juliet Ashton is looking for her next book subject.  Who could imagine that she would find it in a letter from a man she's never met, a native of the island of Guernesy, who has come across her name written inside a book by Charles Lamb.  As Juliet and her new correspondend exchange letters, Juliet is drawn into the world of this man and his friends - and what a wonderfully eccentric world it is.  The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society - born as a spru-of-the-moment alibi when its members were discovered breaking curfew by the Germans occupying their island - boasts a charming, funny, deeply human cast of characters, from pig farmers to phrenologists, lterature lovers all.  Juliet beings a remarkable correspondence with the society's members, learning about their island, their taste in books, and the impact the recent German occupation has had on their lives.  Captivated by their stories, she sets saild for Guernesy, and what she finds will change her forever.

This was a pretty good book.  I might be a little gernous giving it 4 stars - it is more like a 3.5.  I did like the characters and the sweet town of Guernsey.  I could pictures the cute houses and the gathering of the Literary Society.  I did not like that the entire book was written in the style of letters back and forth between characters.  I felt that I couldn't really get into the story that way - it was choppy at best.  I also did not love the main character - Juliet.  She was fine, but some of the thing she did seemed way out there.  Adopting a little girl who she didn't know within a few weeks of being on the island?  And falling for a guy where the letters were just not giving any indication of their strong feelings at all.

anway - it was fine.  Cute story.  

Stars: 4

Book: Troublemaker

 Book: Troublemaker

Author: Leah Remini

Pages: 272

This is my 6th read for the year

What Amazon says:

Leah Remini has never been the type of hold her tongue.  That willingness to speak her mind, stand her ground, and rattle the occasional cage has enabled this tough-talking girl from Brooklyn to forge an enduring and successful career in Hollywood.  But being a troublemaker has come at a cost.  That was never more evidet than in 2013, when Remini loudly and publicly broke with the Church of Scientology.  Now, in this memoir, the former King of Queens star opens up about that experience for the first time, revealing the in-depth details of her painful split with the church and its controversial practices.  Indocrinated into the church as a child while living with her mother and sister in New York, Remini eventually moved to Los Angeles, where her dreams of becoming an actress and advancing Scientology's causes grew increasingly intertwined.  As an adult, she found th success she'd worked so hard for, and with it a prominent place in the hierarchy of celebrity Scientologists alongside people such as Tom Cruise, Scientology's most high-profile adherent.  Remini spent time directly with Cruise and was included among the guests at his 2006 wedding to Katie Holmes.  But when she bean to raise questions about some of the church's actions, she found herself a target.  In the end, she was declared by the church to be a threat to their organization and therefore a "Suppressive Person" and as a result all of her fellow parishioners - including members of her own family - were told to disconnect from her.  Forever.

This was a pretty good book.  I watched King of Queens, and while I found her character...."alot" - I still enjoyed the show over the years.  This book is almost 9 years old, and she has been out of scientology for over a decade, but I had no idea she was a scientologist or what all she and her family went through over the years.  Learning a bit about the inner workings of this so called church was interesting.  I would say the hardest part was that Leah seems to be know to be quiet difficult and she does a lot of complaining in this book that seemed a bit over the top.  I am sure I am being too harsh a judge.  She was in this church for 30 years and gave them a lot of time and money, so she has a right to be angry.  It just seemed to be a bit much.  OVerall, though - glad I read it.

Stars: 3

Book: The Briar Club

 Book: The Briar Club

Author: Kate Quinn

Pages: 432

This is my 5th read for the year

What Amazon says:

Washington, DC, 1950.  Everyone keeps to themselves at Briarwood House, a donw-at-the-heels all-female boardinghouse in the heart of the nation's capital where secrets hide behind white picket fences.  But when the lovely, mysterious widow Grace March moves into the attic room, she draws her oddball collection of neighbors into unlikely friendship: poised English beauty Fliss, whose facade of perfect wife and mother covers gaping inner wounds; policeman's daughter Nora, who finds herself entangled with a shadowy gangster; frustrated baseball star Beatrice, whose career has come to an end along with the women's baseball league of WWII; and poisonous, gung-ho Arlene, who has thrown herself into McCarthy's Red Scare.  Grace's weekly attic-room dinner parties and window-brewed sun teac become a healing  balm on all their lives, but she hides a terrible secret of her own.  When a shocking act of violence tears the house apart, the Briar Club women must decide once and for all: who is the true enemy in their midst?

This was a great book.  I read it in a few short days  - finding all kinds of time to keep reading instead of doing anything else.  The characters are well developed and I loved that each character got their own chapter so we learned their backstory and how they came to be at the boarding house.  Grace was my favorite character - how she took a so-so situation and turned it into a home bringing every character (even Arlene in the end) into the fold of what it is to be in a found family.  The story flowed nicely, and the ending wasn't all that surprising, but that didn't take away from anything.  And I liked the long author's note at the end where she explains where she got the inspriation throughout history for her characters.  Another great Kate Quinn read.

Stars: 5

Book: The Secret History

 Book: The Secret History

Author: Donna Tartt

Pages: 576

This is my 4th read for the year

What Amazon says:

Under the influence of a charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at a New England college discover a way of thought and life a world away from their banal contemporaries.  But their search for the transcendent leads them down a dangerous path, beyond human constructs of morality.

This book was just eh.  I cannot quite figure out what all the hype was about - it was boring and dry and I couldn't wait for it to end.

Stars: 2

Book: The Frozen River

 Book: The Frozen River

Author: Ariel Lawhorn

Pages: 448

This is my 3rd read for the year

Amazon says:

Maine, 1789: When the Kennebec River freezes, entombing a man in the ice, Martha Ballard is summoned to examine the body and determine cause of death.  As a midwife and healer, she is privy to much of what goes on behind closed doors in Hallowell.  Her diary is a record of every birth and death, crime and debacle that unfolds in the close-knit community.  Months earlier, Martha documented the details of an elleged rape committed by two of the town's most respected gentlemen - one of whom has now been found dead in the ice.  But when a local physician undermines her conclusion, declaring the death to be an accident, Martha is forced to investigate the shocking murder on her own.  Over the course of one winter, as the trial nears, and whispers and prejudices mount, Martha doggedly pursues the truth.  Her diary soon lands at the center of the scandal, implicating those she loves, and compelling Martha to decide where her own loyalties lie.  

This was a great book.  The story was a page turner from the beginning and continued so to the end.  Litte chapter cliff hangers here and there had me putting off doing other things to keep reading.  The writing is well done and the women characters are very likable as are Martha's husband and sons.  The evil man in this book is extremely evil.  It almost makes you cringe.  There is a bit of over explaining of different things, but on the whole - a nicely put together story.  Funny enough -my favorite part of the book was the author's talk at the end of the book where she talks about how she came about writing this book about a real person (Martha Ballard) and making it the most fictionalized version of a real person she has ever done.  It was fascinating and now I must read the biographical book on Martha Ballard to learn about this woman who did deliver over 1000 babies and who was a part of this towns murder and rape trial.

Stars: 4.5

Book: Killers of the Flower Moon

 Book: Killers of the Flower Moon

Author: David Grann

Pages: 416

This is my 2nd book of the year

What Amazon says:

In the 1920s, the richest people per capita in the world were members of the Osage Nation in Oklahoma.  After oil was discovered beneath their land, the Osage rode in chauffeured automobiles, built mansions, and sent their children to study in Europe.  Then, one by one, the Osage began to be killed off.  The family of an Osage woman, Mollie Burkahrt, became a prime target.  One of her relatives was shot.  Another was poisoned.  And it was just the beginning, as more and more Osage were dying under mysterious circumstances, and many of those who dared to investigate the killings were themseles murdered.  As the death toll rose, the newly created FBI took up the case, and the young director, J. EDgar Hoover, turned to the former Texas Ranger named Tom White to try and unravel the mystery.  White put together an undercover team, including a Native American agent who infiltrated the region, and together with the Osage began to expose one of the most chilling conspriacies in American history.

This was a pretty good book.  It is a story I knew nothing about (I have not seen the movie) and the information was facinating and disturbing.  I knew nothing of the murders of the Osage but have heard of the tribe.  It is pretty well written, and informational and educational.  I will say it was a little dry in spots and I found myself having to walk away and come back because the underlining story should be read.  It should be known.  So I am glad I read it.

Stars: 4