I've not been doing a great job at keeping up with doing the little book review snippets as I meant to. Considering that this year is quickly drawing to a close, I thought I should take some time to get caught up.
The Invisible Man, by H.G. Wells
I had picked this book up at a swap about a year ago, because it's one of those classics that I feel like I should have read in high school, but didn't. And because it was free and I'm a sucker for a free book. The story is about an eccentric scientist who discovers a way to make himself invisible. Alas, being invisible is not all that it's cracked up to be, as the man who turns himself invisible starts to turn insane by the end. Overall, it was okay.
The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak
I watched this movie over the holidays last year, and so was eager to read the book to see how they compared. The story is set in a small German town during WWII, with the story itself being narrated by Death. That may seem a little strange, but it kind of made sense. The main character is a young German girl adopted by an older German couple who end up hiding a Jewish man in their home. I like how the author developed the relationship between this young girl and her adoptive parents and the other kids in her neighborhood. I really liked the book, and liked it better than the movie (no surprise there). For some reason, I think the book is categorized as "Young Adult" fiction, but the language and themes in the book are, in my opinion, not all that appropriate for pre-teens/young teens.
Call the Midwife, In the Shadows of the Workhouse, and Farewell to the East End, by Jennifer Worth
I really enjoy the BBC show "Call the Midwife" (Side note - Americans need to take a lesson from the British. The BBC produces such great shows, including Downton Abbey, Sherlock, and Call the Midwife. It makes our American stuff look like drivel, which it usually is.) Anyway, in case it's not clear by now, if I've seen a movie or TV show based on a book, that pretty much means I must read the book too. The BBC show is based on the memoirs of Jennifer Worth, who worked as a nurse in a poor area of London in the mid 1950s. The TV show uses some material from her written memoirs, and adds additional story lines not found in the books. The books are stories of her time as a nurse midwife, working at a time before birth control so couples had very large families. The stories are not all about midwifery and childbirth, as the nurses also provided general nursing care to the poor in their community. There are vivid descriptions of what life was like for poor dockworkers and their families, how families coped with trying to rebuild after WWII, the government's attempts (and failures) at providing suitable housing for many poor families, and heartbreaking descriptions of the old "workhouse" system, in which the poor where essentially imprisoned for being poor. The nurse midwives worked with an order of nuns in the community, so there is also a very subtle theme in the books about Jennifer's contemplation of spiritual things and her search for the Truth. There is nothing overtly said about what she ends up believing, but one of the nuns tells her at one point that if she wants to find the Truth, the Gospels are the place to start, and it seems that Jennifer heeds this advice. Overall, great books.
Stolen Innocence: My Story of Growing Up in a Polygamous Sect, Becoming a Teenage Bride, and Breaking Free of Warren Jeffs, by Elissa Wall
I bought myself a Kindle this year, and I wanted to try out borrowing a digital book from the library. This was the book I borrowed. I probably wouldn't have put it on my "to read" list, but it turned out to be okay. Not great, just okay. The title is pretty self-explanatory, and that's pretty much what the story was about. A couple of years ago I had read "Under the Banner of Heaven", by Jon Krakauer, which gives the history of the Mormon church, and Fundamentalist Mormonism in particular. I liked Krakauer's book better than this one, although perhaps it's not a fair comparison considering that Wall's is her personal story while Krakauer's is an outsider's view.
Encounters with Jesus: Unexpected Answers to Life's Biggest Questions, by Tim Keller
I got this book for Christmas last year. In the first half of the book, each chapter in the book looks at the story of a Biblical character (such as Nathaniel, Mary & Martha, the Samaritan woman) that had an encounter with Jesus, and how that encounter changed his/her life. The second half of the book examines moments in Jesus' life (including his temptation, betrayal, ascension). Each chapter draws from these events in Jesus' life to help give the reader a greater understanding of who Jesus is and what he's done for us. I really liked that each chapter was self-contained, so you could easily pick it up and read a chapter or two at a time without feeling the need to read the entire book straight through. It's really good, and I think it would be good for someone who is a new Christian or maybe just exploring the faith, although it's also good for someone who's been a believer for a long time too.
The Invisible Bridge, by Julie Orringer
I picked this book up at the recommendation of a friend. It's a wide-ranging story of a young poor Hungarian Jewish man who moves from Hungary to Paris to study architecture. While in Paris, he falls in love with a woman who has her own checkered past. World War II breaks out, which forces him back to Hungary where he eventually ends up serving in the Hungarian army under pretty deplorable conditions. The main character has two brothers who also feature heavily in the story, although not to the degree I expected them too. I had been under the impression that the story was going to be much more about the bond between brothers, and while that theme is certainly there, it gets a little lost in the drama that occurs between the main character and the woman. The book is long, and it kind of drags in the middle, and there's a lot of Hungarian names that are really hard to pronounce in your head when you're reading it. Overall though, it was pretty good and I did enjoy it.
I just realized that a lot of these books have some connection to WWII, as did a few of the books I read earlier this year (Cost of Discipleship, Snow Falling on Cedars). Maybe next year I'll gravitate towards a different time period!
No comments:
Post a Comment