| Author |
Message |
Seamonkey
Moderator
09-07-2000
| Monday, May 25, 2015 - 1:32 pm 
Finished up with Helen Keller and reading now a memoir:
Identical Strangers: A Memoir of Twins Separated and Reunited by Elyse Schein and Paula Bernstein.
There was an elite Jewish adoption agency that placed Jewish babies/kids with Jewish families but a secret was that a therapist with a theory that it was best to separate twins was in charge, but not only were the twins separated, the adoptive parents were not told, just that they wanted their child to be part of a twin study, but they were actually studying differences in identical twins raised in different families. I'm not done reading but as these twins are trying to unravel things, it is seeming that the birth mothers were also suffering from various disorders so perhaps the study was also figuring out if schizophrenia, bipolar, depression, were inherited. And again, the adoptive parents were lied to about the birth moms.
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Seamonkey
Moderator
09-07-2000
| Monday, May 25, 2015 - 6:41 pm
Finished that memoir.. well done.
Starting another novel that went on sale by Catherine Ryan Hyde, Electric God
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Uncle_ricky
Member
07-02-2007
| Tuesday, May 26, 2015 - 11:17 am
Over the weekend I read The Revolution Was Televised by prominent TV critic, Alan Sepinwall. Very nicely researched and written. He goes behind the scenes to chronicle how the major shows of the past 15 years came to be (Sopranos; Oz; 24; Mad Men; Breaking Bad; Friday Night Lights, etc. etc.) and how they sustained their popularity with audiences and critics alike.
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Rvon
Member
12-11-2003
| Thursday, May 28, 2015 - 6:30 am
I am reading Nightingale by Kristin Hannah and it is nothing like her typical "chick" books. It is a great story.
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Mamie316
Member
07-08-2003
| Thursday, May 28, 2015 - 9:31 am
I read Life is Short (No Pun Intended) by Jennifer Arnold and Bill Klein in about a day. Such a positive read, so much them. They always make me feel happy. They've overcome so much but their spirit is contagious.
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Seamonkey
Moderator
09-07-2000
| Thursday, May 28, 2015 - 1:24 pm
I now have that book on my Kindle. Looking forward to it.
Finished Electric God. That author comes up with characters you just want to smack but she writes books that usually hold my attention.
Now reading a travel memoir by a woman who decided to take a road trip after her parents died, a really extended one that morphed into quite an exploration. I'm about half done and she WAS heading to Alaska but realized she didn't want to rush. She left from Atlanta and zigged across the plains and into Canada and then want back east through Canada and is now wintering in Maine where she did rent a place on the ocean. She mostly was camping in a Volkswagon van. Traveling the Two-Lane by Marilyn Berman. She also flashes back to her life and family, growing up as a lesbian and never out to her family.
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Kappy
Member
06-28-2002
| Saturday, May 30, 2015 - 1:32 pm
A Man Called Ove made me laugh throughout the book and then shed more then a few tears in the end. Well done!
Now on to Orphan Train and love this passage near the beginning: "I've come to think that's what heaven is – a place in the memory of others where our best selves live on".
I also just picked up Girl Underwater at the library thanks to the comments above.
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Seamonkey
Moderator
09-07-2000
| Saturday, May 30, 2015 - 3:40 pm
Yeah, I kind of wish I still had A Man Called Ove to discover and read but certainly happy I didn't miss it.
I finished Traveling on the Two-Lane and it was quite good, actually. Not perfect but good.
Going to read a short.. 29 page interview Dutch on Dutch: One of the Last In-Depth Interviews with the Incomparable Elmore Leonard and also have started Life is Short by Jen Arnoold, MD and Bill Klein and don't want to go too fast. Early lives, definitely more than we've been told, especially Bill's.
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Seamonkey
Moderator
09-07-2000
| Saturday, May 30, 2015 - 6:34 pm
So it seemed more than 29 pages, but interesting.. he was the author of many books, some became movies, westerns and then lots of crime stuff set in Detroit and in Florida, because the auther lived in/near Detroit always and had a place in Florida.
Back to Bill and Jen.
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Seamonkey
Moderator
09-07-2000
| Monday, June 01, 2015 - 8:57 pm
Finished Bill and Jen's book, which I enjoyed very much and learned more about them as well..
And then read a memoir, Trafficked which was frustrating even knowing what happens when someone is beaten into submission.. and this woman was pre-programmed to feel like she wasn't worthwhile.. but all the way through just cringing at her choices that then led to being pimped out in another country and routinely beaten by the pimp.
And frustration that she still hasn't been willing to testify against the guy who continued to threaten her.
Starting a novel by David Baldacci, Wish You Well that was on special.. There is apparently a movie available on DVD or on demand as well.
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Reenie
Member
06-24-2006
| Tuesday, June 02, 2015 - 12:06 pm
Just started "The Art of Fielding". I am enjoying it so far.
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Mamie316
Member
07-08-2003
| Tuesday, June 02, 2015 - 12:26 pm
I am reading the new Judy Blume, In The Unlikely Event. I felt all giddy when it appeared on my Kindle this morning. I have so much to do so I hope I don't get immediately involved. (Or do I?)
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Uncle_ricky
Member
07-02-2007
| Thursday, June 04, 2015 - 3:28 pm
Even though it took me only a week to read The Universal Tone by Carlos Santana, it felt like a MONTH. It had its moments, but at 516 pages, it was 300 pages too long. It sounded interesting when he was interviewed on NPR about it - alas, that was very much not the case. I would recommend it only to those who self-identify as HARD-CORE Santana fans.
Reenie, I hope you end up liking The Art of Fielding as much as I did. 
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Reenie
Member
06-24-2006
| Thursday, June 04, 2015 - 6:51 pm
Uncle Ricky, I am totally enjoying it! I suggested it for my book club and hope they like it too!
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Seamonkey
Moderator
09-07-2000
| Friday, June 05, 2015 - 1:08 pm
Wish You Well was frustrating for me.. but I guess I'm so non fiction oriented that if a story is far fetched, and not true, I get bugged by that. But I cared for the people and I imagine it will be decent family movie. And it imparts some history too.
I had a freebie book on my Kindle Cat Names, which was short, very short and I'm done and no wiser for it. Now reading Power of Vitmin D by Sarfraz Zaidi, MD and it cites studies plus the findings of this doctor and parallels what I heard from a lecture by an endocrinologist as well as my friend's nephrologists and other doctors, including my oncologist and other cancer doctors, about the importance of Vitamin D (they all point out that it is NOT a vitamin, but a hormone).
I sure wish I'd known some of this decades earlier as it might have helped me not to develop osteopenia. Anyway, I recommend this book or learning on the topic.
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Seamonkey
Moderator
09-07-2000
| Saturday, June 06, 2015 - 10:23 am
Well, lots about Vitamin D, K2, etc.. Calcium..
Interesting sidenote on quinoa.. this doctor compared the value of quinoa to other foods and finds it a bit lacking in comparison, not that I've ever tried it but now I feel even less quilty about that.
Starting a memoir by a woman who went to Kazakhstan with her husband to do a 2 year Peace Corps stint as a retired adult.
At Home on the kazakh Steppe: A Peace Corps Memoir by Janet Givens.
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Kappy
Member
06-28-2002
| Saturday, June 06, 2015 - 6:05 pm
OMG I loved Orphan Train!!
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Rieann
Member
08-26-2006
| Sunday, June 07, 2015 - 10:18 am
Sea, I picked up the vitamin D book as it was just 99cents. I have some and need to remember to take it as a supplement for my depression. I don't think I've heard it referred to as a hormone before. It will be interesting to see what it says.
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Seamonkey
Moderator
09-07-2000
| Sunday, June 07, 2015 - 7:29 pm
Yes, the endocrinologist from Hoag in Newport Beach splained to us that it is a hormone but was labelled a vitamin erroneously many years ago.
Vitamin D3 is exciting when you see all the studies that show what it can do or what a lack of it can do.
And the doctor who gave the lecture I attended was quite legit.
I've also run some things by a friend's nephrologist and they say vitamin D3 levels are very important to them for their patients.
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Seamonkey
Moderator
09-07-2000
| Tuesday, June 09, 2015 - 12:54 am
Finished the Peace Corps memoir which was okay.
Starting The Story of Charlotte's Web: E. B, White's Eccentric Life in Nature and the Birth of an American Classic by Michael Sims.
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Kappy
Member
06-28-2002
| Tuesday, June 09, 2015 - 3:48 am
Finished Girl Underwater. It's been a long time since I stayed up all night to finish a book. As Mamie said on a previous page, it was Oprah recommended and a good one. It's about a young woman, a competitive college swimmer, who survives a plane crash in the rocky mountains and her recovery after.
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Mamie316
Member
07-08-2003
| Tuesday, June 09, 2015 - 8:58 am
Glad you liked it, Kappy.
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Seamonkey
Moderator
09-07-2000
| Tuesday, June 09, 2015 - 9:33 am
Speaking of Oprah.. a few years ago there was some book that I guess Oprah discovered or.. not sure but it came out on Kindle as "Oprah edition" and then people right away found out that it was littered with highlights BY Oprah! Many were returned to Amazon for refunds and I am not sure that was done again.
Now of course some books come with underlines from readers but you can turn those off if you want and many books don't seem to get those readers.
I will underline but don't think I'm set to share those.
I got so I kind of resented her putting her insignia on the covers of "her" books and I remember some author got upset about it.. though seems to me that for an author it sold a ton of books so was a small price to pay.. just seemed a tad egotistical on her part.
Like here we are happy to share what we like or don't and recommend and just happy when people enjoy the same book that they wouldn't have discovered.
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Kappy
Member
06-28-2002
| Tuesday, June 09, 2015 - 12:52 pm
Back in the day when I tried to read many of the books Oprah recommended, I liked that the "O" was imprinted on the cover of the paperbacks because then when I went to Costco (the only place I bought books back then), it made it easy to find them. If it wasn't for that "O", I wouldn't have read most of those authors. She got so many people reading authors that were previously unknown that I never thought of it as an ego move.
My only priorities for buying paperbacks back then is that they had to say "New York Times Bestseller" or it had to have the "O". When they had both, they were usually heaven to read. :0)
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Seamonkey
Moderator
09-07-2000
| Friday, June 12, 2015 - 9:51 am
I am LOVING this book about E B White (Stuart Little and Charlotte's Web), who actually went by Andy White..
He was an interesting character and I'm enjoying his life plus all the history included about other writers.. he and his wife were at the New Yorker for years.. anyway just a quiet bio but well done, detailed. Right now he is writing Charlotte's Web. I have the audio book, read by him but it is on cassette, so I think I must get it in some format I can access now.. I remember he did a wonderful job of reading it!
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