Rebecca by Daphne DuMaurier

I read this book several years ago and quite enjoyed it.  It was a selection for my book club for our February meeting, so I thought I'd just flip through it before the meeting.  But when I opened it, I realized I remembered very little about the story so I ended up doing a complete re-read of the book.

Rebecca is the story of a shy, young, unnamed woman who meets and falls in love with Maxim de Winter a handsome widower.  His wife, Rebecca, had tragically drowned a year ago.  After he proposes to our heroine, she moves with him to Manderley, his expansive English estate.

The problem is, she feels the shadow of Rebecca everywhere she turns.  Rebecca's favourite flowers are still placed in the house every day.  Rebecca's favourite meals are still served.  The new Mrs de Winter is constantly being told that she is, "nothing like Rebecca".  Maxim seems distracted and sad.  She feels he regrets marrying her and that he wants Rebecca back.

Her youth and shyness prevent her from talking to anyone about it and she becomes tortured with thoughts of Rebecca's presence.  Added to her insecurity is the presence of Mrs Danvers, the housekeeper who had been Rebecca's personal maid.  She has kept Rebecca's room perfectly preserved since the night of her accident and clearly has no interest in having a new Mrs de Winter in the house.

The book starts off fairly slowly, but really picks up in the second half.  An elaborate costume ball, a shipwreck and a gruesome discovery add to the excitement.

As our book club discussed this book on Sunday evening we talked about our frustration with not knowing Mrs de Winter's first name.  I understand that it was left out to emphasize how unimportant she felt and how she didn't feel like a woman when compared to the perfect Rebecca, but it is still frustrating.  Even writing this post has been difficult without a name to use.  It's an interesting device.
It's a great book, I highly recommend it.  If you liked Jane Eyre, you'll like this one.  It's got a similar feel to it,with the mysterious first wife and the big English estate.  In fact as I was re-reading this one, I was confusing the story with Jane Eyre in my mind.

Apparently Alfred Hitchcock made this into a movie.  I think I might check it out.

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

What a lovely book this was to read.  It was recommended to me by a friend who loves it and wanted me to read it.  I'm glad I did.

I knew very little about the book when I started it and I'm kind of glad about that.  I loved the lyrical writing style (although it sometimes sped up my nodding off at the end of a long day) and quickly fell into the story.

It's the story of Santiago, a young Spanish shepherd who heads to Egypt in search of his Personal Legend (always capitalized throughout the book).  Everyone has a personal legend, but very few actually find it.  You must listen to your heart, follow the omens and understand the Language of the World.  Of course, he meets many challenges along the way and questions the validity of his search, but decides to continue on.

It's a theme I've been encountering over and over again in recent months.  Find your dreams and do what it takes to achieve them.  When I heard Chris Hadfield speak in November, this was essentially the message he gave us.  Set a goal and make decisions in your life that will help you achieve that goal.  You might reach it, or you might not, (believe it or not, he didn't), but your life will be richer and fuller for having worked for what you want.

The Rosie Effect, by Graeme Simsion

Meh.  I expected to like this book a lot more than I did.  When I read The Rosie Project I loved the character of Don Tillman and couldn't get enough of the book.  I loved the story of how the man who has Asberger's but doesn't know it falls in love and marries a woman who is the opposite of his expectations.

Naturally I was excited when I heard there was going to be a sequel.  Fantastic!

In this book, Don and Rosie have moved from Melbourne to New York City.  Once there, Rosie discovers she is pregnant.  The rest of the book follows their preparations for parenthood, along with the challenges that change presents to their still fairly new marriage.

I just felt like Rosie had a complete personality shift in this book.  In the first book, she seemed to really understand Don and the quirks that make him "not average".  But in this book there are many situations where it seems she is expecting him to change who he is.  I don't think the Rosie we met in the first book would do that.  As a result their marriage hits a crisis point.

Maybe it's just that I'm still not interested in reading about marriages in trouble.  Hard to say.  But I don't think that's it.  I just found her pretty unlikeable in this book.

Don still has some laugh out loud moments, and learns some great things about himself.  Some of the situations are more than a little far-fetched and then resolved too easily.  But it's a light read, it can be read quickly and might make you laugh at the end of a busy day.

Thunder Dog by Michael Hingson with Susy Flory

I feel like this blog post would be complete if I just said, "Read this book!"  But there is so much more I want to say.

What a great book!  This was a selection for my book club for our January meeting.  I wasn't finished it in time for that meeting, but I'm glad I finished it afterwards.  This book is the account of Michael Hingson and his guide dog as they escaped the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.  Michael became blind as a premature baby, after being exposed to too much oxygen in the hospital.

Not letting that stand in his way, Michael worked hard, went to college and embarked on a career in sales that landed him a job in the World Trade Center. After receiving his first guide dog at the age of 15, he didn't go anywhere without his dog by his side.  So Roselle was there with him on that day, as she was any day.

The story weaves together their experiences on September 11th, along with stories from Michael's childhood, giving you an understanding of what it was like for him to grow up blind.  Fascinating stuff.

There are so many good things about this book, but my what struck me the most was the attitude of Michael's parents.  Michael was born in 1950.  After his blindness was discovered, doctors recommended that he be placed in residential care, to ease the burden on his parents.  This wasn't something his parents would even consider.  They brought Michael home, and taught him that there wasn't anything he couldn't do and that allowed him to reach his full potential.  He wasn't treated any differently than other kids, he went to public school, he rode a bike (leading to one of my favourite scenes in the book) and even bought himself a Ford Mustang!  But his life could have been very different.  If his parents had taken that advice, he would have had a very different experience.  I love the bravery they showed, long before that was the common approach for parents to take.  It's a great lesson for all of us in how we treat people we perceive as "different".  

I can't recommend this book highly enough!  It's an easy read, you'll likely find it fascinating and work through it quite quickly.

A House in the Sky by Amanda Lindhout and Sara Corbett

Perhaps you've thought that I've given up on blogging about the books I've read.  That is not true.  The fact is, I've been so busy that I haven't finished a book since July.  Fortunately, that changed this morning.  I hope to be back on track(ish) now.

The main reason I haven't been reading is the general busyness of my life, especially my studies.  My courses this semester involved a lot of reading, which didn't leave much time for reading for fun.

But another reason is that the book I was reading was A House in the Sky.  This is the true story of a Canadian woman who was taken hostage in Mogadishu, Somalia, and held there for 15 months.

As you can imagine, this was not pleasant reading.  What Amanda, and her fellow captive Nigel Brennan, endured was unbelievable and heartbreaking.  At the end of a long, busy day, it was hard to want to pick up a book that involved so much devastation.

This was my book club's chosen book for October.  I finished it this morning.  Not bad.  (haha).  I wasn't able to attend the meeting where it was discussed, so I don't know how the other women in my group felt about it.  A women's group from my church will also be discussing the book in January.  I'll be interested to hear their thoughts.

It is helpful to know that Amanda wrote the book herself.  Otherwise as you are reading it, you would never believe that she could make it out alive.  But I would love to read or learn more about her adjustment back into "normal" life.  In the epilogue she talks briefly about some of the PTSD therapy she received, but I still can't imagine how difficult the transition was for her.

It is a powerful story of what a person can endure, but it is not a book you will read for fun.  If you read it, or have read it, I'd love to hear your thoughts too.

This Can't Be Happening at MacDonald Hall by Gordon Korman

Sorry, we finished this book weeks ago, but I never got around to blogging about it.

After we finished the Chronicles of Narnia we were looking for a new series to read together as a family.  A friend reminded me of the fun Canadian series about MacDonald Hall and we thought we'd give it a try.  Are we ever glad we did!

This Can't Be Happening at MacDonald Hall was written by Gordon Korman when he was 12 years old and published when he was 14.  It is a very funny book, about the adventures of two mischievous students, Bruno and Boots who keep things interesting at their boarding school, MacDonald Hall.  I remembered loving these books as a kid and hoped the kids would love them too.

They did.  There are many times when we were laughing so hard we had to take a break from reading.

Bruno and Boots get into serious trouble at the beginning of the book, so they lose the privilege of rooming together.  They are assigned new roommates, probably the last two guys in school they'd choose as their roommates.  Their new mission becomes finding a way to get put back together again in their old room.

We all loved this book and laughed a lot.  I only had one problem with the book.  The book was published in 1979, but this version has clearly been updated.  On one page we were reading about one of the new roommates having a 3D LED TV in his room.  I'm a purist who would like the original text to be left as it was written.

But aside from that minor bit, we highly recommend this fun book!

Crazy Adventure by A. McDormand, A. McDormand and M. Peddle

Well, this was my surprise read of the summer.

After spending a rainy afternoon playing some fill-in-the-blank story games, some of my day care crew decided they wanted to write a book themselves.  The next day, "Crazy Adventure" was born.

As the book was being written I was asked if I am troubled by nightmares.  I said that I had them from time to time.  The response was, "I hope this doesn't give you any tonight!"

This is the story of a day care, with a day care provider named Sue, who is afraid of snakes.  The kids find a treasure map and as they head out in search of the treasure, they run into some obstacles along the way.

As the adventure continues, they encounter crocodiles and snakes.  One of the snakes bites Sue and she is suddenly transformed into a snake.  They find some medicine that transforms snakes into humans, but (SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!) it doesn't work and Sue stays a snake forever.

This is a very funny story, with great characters.  There is fantastic art throughout the book as well.  I highly recommend this book, but seeing as how I have the only copy, you might need to swing by my house to have a read.  I hope these authors come up with more books, I'm looking forward to reading anything else they publish.