Author: Byron Katie
Published: 2002
Genre: Self-help
Rating: 3
Summary
Byron Katie states: "It's not the problem that causes our suffering; it's our thinking about the problem." Her book introduces a concept called "The Work": four questions that, when applied to a specific problem, enable an individual to see what is troubling him or her in an entirely different light. This book shows the reader--step by step--through clear and vivid examples, exactly how to use this revolutionary process.
Review
The Work is basically a fleshed-out version of the idea that you can't change or control anyone else; all you can really control is your own thoughts and feelings. Since it is a concept I have tried to live by for years, this book wasn't revelatory. However, I can see how reading it and applying these principles could easily be life changing for some.
Saturday, March 22, 2014
Tuesday, October 15, 2013
The Secret Keeper
Author: Kate Morton
Published: 2012
Genre: Fiction
Rating: 4
Summary
During a party at the family farm in the English countryside, sixteen-year-old Laurel Nicolson has escaped to her childhood tree house and is dreaming of the future. She spies a stranger coming up the road and sees her mother speak to him. Before the afternoon is over, Laurel will witness a shocking crime that challenges everything she knows about her family and especially her mother, Dorothy.
Now, fifty years later, Laurel is a successful and well-regarded actress, living in London. She returns to the family farm for Dorothy’s ninetieth birthday and finds herself overwhelmed by questions she has not thought about for decades. From pre-WWII England through the Blitz, to the fifties and beyond, discover the secret history of three strangers from vastly different worlds—Dorothy, Vivien, and Jimmy—who meet by chance in wartime London and whose lives are forever entwined.
Review
The characters are well-developed, the plot twists are unexpected, the prose flows nicely. This is my favorite of Morton's works so far.
Published: 2012
Genre: Fiction
Rating: 4
Summary
During a party at the family farm in the English countryside, sixteen-year-old Laurel Nicolson has escaped to her childhood tree house and is dreaming of the future. She spies a stranger coming up the road and sees her mother speak to him. Before the afternoon is over, Laurel will witness a shocking crime that challenges everything she knows about her family and especially her mother, Dorothy.
Now, fifty years later, Laurel is a successful and well-regarded actress, living in London. She returns to the family farm for Dorothy’s ninetieth birthday and finds herself overwhelmed by questions she has not thought about for decades. From pre-WWII England through the Blitz, to the fifties and beyond, discover the secret history of three strangers from vastly different worlds—Dorothy, Vivien, and Jimmy—who meet by chance in wartime London and whose lives are forever entwined.
Review
The characters are well-developed, the plot twists are unexpected, the prose flows nicely. This is my favorite of Morton's works so far.
Wednesday, October 9, 2013
How Do I Love Thee?
Author: Nancy Moser
Published: 2009
Genre: Historical Fictionalized Biography
Rating: 4
Summary
Elizabeth Barrett is a published poet--and a virtual prisoner in her own home. Blind family loyalty ties her to a tyrannical father who forbids any of his children to marry. Bedridden by chronic illness, she has resigned herself to simply existing. That is, until the letter arrives...
"I love your verses with all my heart," writes Robert Browning, an admiring fellow poet. As friendly correspondence gives way to something more, Elizabeth discovers that Robert's love is not for her poetry alone. Might God grant her more than mere existence? And will she risk defying her father in pursuit of true happiness?
Review
A beautifully written historical fictionalized work about Elizabeth Barrett and her romance with Robert Browning.
Monday, September 30, 2013
Uprising
Author: Margaret Peterson Haddix
Published: 2007
Genre: YA Historical Fiction
Rating: 3.5
Summary
Bella, newly arrived in New York from Italy, gets a job at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. There, along with hundreds of other immigrants, she works long hours at a grueling job under terrible conditions. Yetta, a coworker from Russia, has been crusading for a union, and when factory conditions worsen, she helps workers rise up in a strike. Wealthy Jane learns of the plight of the workers and becomes involved with their cause.
Bella and Yetta are at work--and Jane is visiting the factory--on March 25, 1911, when a spark ignites some cloth and the building is engulfed in fire, leading to one of the worst workplace disasters ever.
Review
A good historical fiction work to help young adults understand working conditions at the time and the plight of many immigrant workers.
Published: 2007
Genre: YA Historical Fiction
Rating: 3.5
Summary
Bella, newly arrived in New York from Italy, gets a job at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. There, along with hundreds of other immigrants, she works long hours at a grueling job under terrible conditions. Yetta, a coworker from Russia, has been crusading for a union, and when factory conditions worsen, she helps workers rise up in a strike. Wealthy Jane learns of the plight of the workers and becomes involved with their cause.
Bella and Yetta are at work--and Jane is visiting the factory--on March 25, 1911, when a spark ignites some cloth and the building is engulfed in fire, leading to one of the worst workplace disasters ever.
Review
A good historical fiction work to help young adults understand working conditions at the time and the plight of many immigrant workers.
10 Great Souls I Want to Meet in Heaven
Author: S. Michael Wilcox
Published: 2012
Genre: LDS Non-fiction
Rating: 4
Summary
In 10 Great Souls I Want to Meet in Heaven, author S. Michael Wilcox profiles the lives of his best friends in history--ten individuals who have tutored his soul as well as his mind and whom he wants to meet in the hereafter. The list includes Saint Patrick, the slave who was not Irish; Saint Francis of Assisi, the son of a wealthy Italian merchant who became a Catholic friar; Joan of Arc, a French peasant who became a national heroine; Mencius, a Chinese philosopher; Khadija and Aisha, wives of and helpmeets to the prophet Mohammad; Siddhartha, who became the Buddha; Charles Darwin, the English scientist and naturalist; Sir Ernest Shackleton, who spend much of his life as a polar explorer; George MacDonald, the Scottish author, poet, and Christian minister who inspired, among others, C.S. Lewis; and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, the prominent English poet, whose love for her husband, Robert Browning, and its reciprocation, are the stuff of legend.
Review
An interesting collection of people from history. The author inspired me to want to study more about several of his "friends" from the past. This is an easy book to read a chapter at a time, since each is a stand alone discussion about one particular individual. Well worth the time--especially as a springboard to further study.
Published: 2012
Genre: LDS Non-fiction
Rating: 4
Summary
In 10 Great Souls I Want to Meet in Heaven, author S. Michael Wilcox profiles the lives of his best friends in history--ten individuals who have tutored his soul as well as his mind and whom he wants to meet in the hereafter. The list includes Saint Patrick, the slave who was not Irish; Saint Francis of Assisi, the son of a wealthy Italian merchant who became a Catholic friar; Joan of Arc, a French peasant who became a national heroine; Mencius, a Chinese philosopher; Khadija and Aisha, wives of and helpmeets to the prophet Mohammad; Siddhartha, who became the Buddha; Charles Darwin, the English scientist and naturalist; Sir Ernest Shackleton, who spend much of his life as a polar explorer; George MacDonald, the Scottish author, poet, and Christian minister who inspired, among others, C.S. Lewis; and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, the prominent English poet, whose love for her husband, Robert Browning, and its reciprocation, are the stuff of legend.
Review
An interesting collection of people from history. The author inspired me to want to study more about several of his "friends" from the past. This is an easy book to read a chapter at a time, since each is a stand alone discussion about one particular individual. Well worth the time--especially as a springboard to further study.
Letters in the Jade Dragon Box
Author: Gale Sears
Published: 2011
Genre: LDS Fiction
Rating: 3
Summary
Truth. In mainland China from 1949 to 1976, truth is all but eradicated--suppressed and supplanted by the iron will of Mao Tse-tung. Millions of people suffer untold anguish as their history, their culture, and their lives are brought under communist rule. Many flee to Taiwan and Hong Kong.
As a child, Chen Wen-shan was taken from her family home in mainland China and sent to live with her great-uncle — a former general in the Nationalist Chinese army who had become one of the first converts to the LDS Church in Hong Kong. For ten years, Wen-shan has carried the sorrow of abandonment in her heart, with few memories of her life before. But at the death of Chairman Mao, fifteen-year-old Wen-shan receives a mysterious wooden box that holds a series of beautiful paintings and secret letters that reveal the fate of the family she has not heard from in more than a decade.
As Wen-shan and her great-uncle read the letters in the jade dragon box, they discover an unbreakable bond between each other, their family, and the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Review
The historical background was intriguing, but the story line itself was flat. It feels like the author is trying to "educate" her audience about the cultural revolution--and that she created a story to further that agenda. The result is a tale that is awkward in places and characters who are not very engaging.
Published: 2011
Genre: LDS Fiction
Rating: 3
Summary
Truth. In mainland China from 1949 to 1976, truth is all but eradicated--suppressed and supplanted by the iron will of Mao Tse-tung. Millions of people suffer untold anguish as their history, their culture, and their lives are brought under communist rule. Many flee to Taiwan and Hong Kong.
As a child, Chen Wen-shan was taken from her family home in mainland China and sent to live with her great-uncle — a former general in the Nationalist Chinese army who had become one of the first converts to the LDS Church in Hong Kong. For ten years, Wen-shan has carried the sorrow of abandonment in her heart, with few memories of her life before. But at the death of Chairman Mao, fifteen-year-old Wen-shan receives a mysterious wooden box that holds a series of beautiful paintings and secret letters that reveal the fate of the family she has not heard from in more than a decade.
As Wen-shan and her great-uncle read the letters in the jade dragon box, they discover an unbreakable bond between each other, their family, and the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Review
The historical background was intriguing, but the story line itself was flat. It feels like the author is trying to "educate" her audience about the cultural revolution--and that she created a story to further that agenda. The result is a tale that is awkward in places and characters who are not very engaging.
The Distant Hours
Author: Kate Morton
Published: 2010
Genre: Fiction
Rating: 3.5
Summary
A long lost letter arrives in the post...and Edie Burchill finds herself on a journey to Milderhurst Castle. Milderhurst is a great but moldering old house where the Blythe spinsters live and where her mother was billeted 50 years before as a 13-year-old child during WWII. The elder Blythe sisters are twins and have spent most of their lives looking after the third and youngest sister, Juniper, who hasn’t been the same since her fiance jilted her in 1941.
Inside the decaying castle, Edie begins to unravel her mother’s past. But there are other secrets hidden in the stones of Milderhurst, and Edie is about to learn more than she expected. The truth of what happened in ‘the distant hours’ of the past has been waiting a long time for someone to find it.
Review
The reader knows by about 80 pages in "what" happened...but doesn't know the "who," "how," or "why" until the very end. The characters were unusual and the plots twists carefully intertwined. The background plot of the Mud Man story was Gothically-creepy and compelling. A read that was worthwhile but not necessarily memorable.
Published: 2010
Genre: Fiction
Rating: 3.5
Summary
A long lost letter arrives in the post...and Edie Burchill finds herself on a journey to Milderhurst Castle. Milderhurst is a great but moldering old house where the Blythe spinsters live and where her mother was billeted 50 years before as a 13-year-old child during WWII. The elder Blythe sisters are twins and have spent most of their lives looking after the third and youngest sister, Juniper, who hasn’t been the same since her fiance jilted her in 1941.
Inside the decaying castle, Edie begins to unravel her mother’s past. But there are other secrets hidden in the stones of Milderhurst, and Edie is about to learn more than she expected. The truth of what happened in ‘the distant hours’ of the past has been waiting a long time for someone to find it.
Review
The reader knows by about 80 pages in "what" happened...but doesn't know the "who," "how," or "why" until the very end. The characters were unusual and the plots twists carefully intertwined. The background plot of the Mud Man story was Gothically-creepy and compelling. A read that was worthwhile but not necessarily memorable.
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