Flimsy Little Plastic Miracles by Ron Currie Jr.

Dear Readers,
I am stumped. Normally after reading a book I am filled with so many thoughts, questions, and revelations that it is hard to put it all in one blog post. For some reason Flimsy Little Plastic Miracles has left me with nothing. Not that the book wasn't good because it was. Not that is didn't interest me because it did. I just don't think there is anything I can say about it.
I am trying hard to give you a good review. I am trying to tell you what to expect, but I don't think I should. I think that you should enjoy this one for yourself. The writing style is very interesting. It switches between different streams of thought so you will never get bored. The story it intriguing. The characters are complex and relatable.
All I have left to say is read it. Enjoy it. It left me with something. Something that I really can't put into words. Hopefully you find something in this "true" story, too.
Lindsey

My Life in France by Julia Child with Alex Prud'homme

Dear Readers,

What can be said about Julia that hasn't already been said?
Her life was full of love. Whether in the kitchen or on television or with the people she loved, Julia Child put her heart into everything.
This love for food, also life, was one of the many influences that pushed me into the culinary industry. Before reading her auto-biography I knew very little about Julia. I thought that I knew her life story, but I really knew nothing until I heard it from her. Her quirky, informal, and personal voice leaves no guessing on how she became an instant success as a cookbook writer and television personality. Her voice and very interesting life make "My Life in France" feel nothing like a dry, traditional biography.
"The France Book", written with help from her great nephew, begins when Julia first discovers her love of France and French food. For every chef out there a story lurkers behind their love. The first taste of excellence never leaves a person. For Julia is was a bite of Sole Menuiere in the Norman countryside her first day in France that set her on the path to becoming the "French Chef". One can only become a great cook after becoming a great eater. Julia and Paul became fantastic eaters their first year in Paris. With a new taste for the rich and wonderful French cuisine, Julia longed to learn to cook the dishes. She started with many disastrous attempts, but eventually with enough practice and confidence grew into an accomplished cook.
These first mess ups and flops are what separate the real go getters from the rest. After messing up and messing up only the ones who will truly make it keep trying. Confidence is key in the kitchen. Julia said it best  when she described her vile eggs Florentine.

"I don't believe in twisting yourself into knots of excuses and explanation over food you make. When one's hostess starts in with self deprecation such as 'Oh, I don't know how to cook...,' or 'Poor little me...,' or 'This tastes awful...,' it is so dreadful to have to reassure that everything is delicious and fine, whether it is or not. Besides, such admissions only draw attentions to one's shortcomings (or self-perceived shortcomings), and make the other person think, 'Yes you're right, this really is an awful meal!' Maybe the cat has fallen into the stew, or the lettuce has frozen, or the cake has collapsed- eh bein tant pis! Usually one's cooking is better than one thinks it is. And if the food is truly vile, as my ersatz eggs Florentine surely were, then the cook must simply grit her teeth and bear it with a smile- and learn from her mistakes." 

 I shared my own flops and failures in the kitchen, and I can guarantee more are coming. Julia's knowledge though rings true. When mistakes are made in the kitchen and in life they must be made into learning experiences.
Julia Child lived a life filled with love and good food, and that is all anyone can hope for (it is most certainly what I am striving for). Reading about her passion has made me think more about my own passions. I have chosen a field where I do what I love everyday. If I did not love baking the burns on my arms and dough under my nails would never be worth it. I leave for work happy every morning and come home thoroughly exhausted but happy. For a very short while I worked at a bakery where I was unhappy; it showed me a few things. Life is to short to do things you dislike. What is the point in waking up everyday to work somewhere that make you miserable? Some may say that I am to young to be thinking about these things. Is there really a better time though? I now have my whole life ahead of me to fill with passion and love.
Julia wander in life for a while. She herself said she was lost in life. Until she met Paul and found a passion for food Julia was not the Julia we all know and love.
Julia taught many how to cook, but she has taught me this... A life lived in the purist of good food and passion is a life well lived. So dear readers have no fear. Go wholeheartedly into anything you love. Make no excuses for your mistakes, instead learn from them. And above all enjoy every morsel you eat!
Lindsey

The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett

Dear Readers,
"You don't put your life into your books. You find it there."
This quirky little novella provides much more insist into the mind of a read than is expected from only 120 pages. The Uncommon Reader tells the tale of an uncommon woman learning the wonder of books meant for common people.
When her unruly corgis find their way onto a traveling library by the castle kitchens Queen Elizabeth II feels obligated to borrow a book from Mr. Hutchings. Out of the same obligation she reads the book and returns it to him the next week. The young Norman, a kitchen boy, recommends the next book for the queen. After a few books she decides she likes this reading thing. Norman becomes her amanuensis.
The more books Norman finds for her, the more the Queen disregards her normal duties. While leaving behind what filled her time to read books, she finds one's life between their pages.
Alan Bennett's Queen has such a sense of finding herself in literature that relating was very easy and the 120 pages flew by. Books open the reader to a whole new world. Places inaccessible and people who are long gone are just a page away for anyone willing to read. The world is such a broad place for one person to experience everything is impossible. Even the Queen of England in this novel felt as though she had not experienced enough.  One evening she writes in her journal "I think of literature as a vast county to far borders of which I am  journeying but will never reach". Books can open up a whole new vast country with unreachable far off borders. So much knowledge and information can be learned from the books at the local library.
Not only do books open up knowledge of human kind with its triumphs, downfalls, wars, and times of peace they also open up the mind. They allow reflection onto one own's life. For the Queen her literature induced epiphany was that her interesting, wonderful, and extremely uncommon life would be left only in peoples memories. This acknowledgement of her current state drove the Queen to seek out ways of leaving her life as more than just a distant memory. The search is not for redemption but conformation  Through reflection and analysis she plans on confirming what she knows about her uncommon life. With the new found knowledge she means to write her story.
Few things can compare to reading. It is an involuntary reaction for most. We read the milk carton at breakfast, the ads on the subway, the billboards on the side of the road, and the multiple text message, twitter and facebook updates, and email on our phones. Finding one's self through words is not much harder. Picking up  a book is the first step to self discovery. Through literature passions can be found, interests can be cultivated, feelings can be understood, history can be relived, lessons can be learned, mistakes can be prevented. If that is not enough motivation to pick up a book the best advice would be to go see a doctor.
Lindsey
Postscript
Not only is this book a wonderful read, a road to self discovery, and an understanding of literature the writing is peppered with fantastic humor. It is one of those books that will leave you smiling. The wit is outstanding. For a taste here is my favorite passage.
These are lines exchanged between the secretary of the Queen and the secretary of the Prime Minister.
"'Yes. Lending him books to read. That's out of order.'
'Her Majesty likes reading.'
'I like having my dick sucked. I don't make the prime minister do it. Any thoughts, Kevin?'"
Go Out And READ!!

I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith

Dear Readers,
So rarely is there a book that perfectly captures the transformation from  teenager to young woman. I Capture the Castle is one of those rare books. The teen shelves at bookstores are now filled with shit. Books that fill teenage girls' heads with silly notions that they will find the perfect man and then on top of him being perfect they will change into vampires and than live forever. Their romances are cheap and their characters transparent. These books are not empowering all of the female teenagers out there, instead they are teaching them that when they fall in love everything will magically work out and there will be no more problem unless they involve saving the world repeatedly, mistaken identities, or the worst of all they are separated from there boyfriend for more than 20 minutes. Life and love is hard. When  better to learn that than as a teenager.
Here is where someone could interject that learning everything from books is not good either. It is said that failure is the best teacher. That is true, but why are we sending girls out there to fail with high expectations of life. It only makes it so when they fall they fall further. They need a guide. I Capture the Castle can be that guide.
Cassandra the narrator of I Capture the Castle is a very well-spoken seventeen year old. She journals a year of her life living in a decrepit castle in the English country side with her family. Her father, who is a famous retired writer, feel in love with the castle while getting lost house hunting one day. He immediately signed a 40 year lease. When they move to the castle Cassandra and her family had it good, but soon things go down hill. Her mother dies, the house keepers dies, her father marries again, and slowly they are running out of money. By the time Cassandra starts her journal they are all out of work, wearing thread bare clothes, and living off their garden and the few eggs they can get from a neighboring farmer. Cassandra has adapted fine to the poverty, but her twenty-one ear old sister, Rose, has not. She still longs for the days when they had more than just enough food to go around and they could buy new clothes every year. Just when Rose considers selling her soul the devil to just get out, a light at the end of the tunnel comes.
The owner of the castle from whom Father is renting died, and his two sons have come to England to visit their estate and their mother. They wander into the castle and end up meeting Cassandra and her family. Rose is determined to make one of them fall in love with her. Both of them are rich and money is all she says she needs. The two families are thrown together.
While her sister is content to fall in love with whoever Cassandra sits to the side and watches. She nudges her sister along knowing that if she marries they will no longer be poor. What she did not expect was how deeply she was going to fall for the man who fell for Rose. After a secret kiss Cassandra falls head over heels in love with the man her sister is suppose to marry. Since her feelings are not reciprocated she is very unhappy in love. She searched for happiness through other means. She tries to push away her feelings.
When she finds out that Rose is not love with her fiance Cassandra has the small hope that they will break it off and he will fall in love with her. They end the engagement, but Cassandra does not get her wish. The man she longs for is still in love with Rose. Cassandra still loves him and even though he asked her to come to America with him she declines. In the end she is happy though she has grown out of her youthful stage and now understands what being in love is about.
That might be an awful and quickly written explanation of the book. It made the book sound silly and only about how much she longed for a man. The meaning in this book is one of those things that is hard to describe in words. Words are no match to my feeling for this book. I related to it so strongly. I have not been unhappy in love to many times, but every high school girl has her share of heart break and unrequited love. The relation to the book went much further than anything about love. Cassandra thought her life was going one way. She planned, she dreamed, she hoped for this one thing to happen. It was all she wanted in the world. For the man she loved to love her back. When it finally came she felt different more adult about her feelings. She declined his offer to leave the country with him. When something you have wanted for so long finally happens it sometimes does not meet your expectations and you are left feeling much different.
I moved to Chicago a year ago longing for freedom from my parents, my town, my old life. I left thinking that I was going to live the most exciting life in the city. I was going to be doing something I had wanted for so long. I had practically begged my parents to let me go. Now after I have been here I find that I want nothing more than to be home with them. Its such an odd feeling. I must grow up though. The saying goes that you sleep in the bed you made. The hardest thing I find with growing up is expectation verses reality. I have recently gone through that just like Cassandra and just like many young girls will go through. It is something not many are prepared for. I know that all life lessons cannot be learnt from the pages of a book, but it is better to be prepared.
I would like to close with one final statement about the book and its importance, but I really can't find the words. For me there was so much more in the book than just a teenage girl longing for love. The best I can do is to say read it. Maybe Cassandra's story will help you grow. Maybe it can help you capture the castles in your life. I know it gave me a good eye-opening.
Lindsey

Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card

Dear Readers,
It would be nice to say that this book left off exactly where Ender's Game ended. That the story of the young boy who the world hated but you fell in love with is right exactly were is it was left, but that is not true.
The Speaker for the Dead begins about 3,000 years after Ender's Game is finished. Ender and his sister, Valentine, are still alive because of their countless journeys traveling at light speed. Ender and Valentine are traveling from planet to planet to speak for the dead. They end up on a a planet mostly filled with water and Valentine falls in love with a seaman there.
This book though does not start out with these familiar face. The reader is first taken to a unfamiliar planet named Lusitania. A colony of mostly Portuguese speaking Catholics has been set up to study the planet. An alien species has been found in the forests of Lusitania. Instead of interacting with this new species and sharing knowledge the Starway Congress (the government of the Hundred Worlds inhabited by humans) tasks a member of the colony to study them.
Pipo is the xenologer (alien anthropology) at the beginning of the book. He and his teenage son Libo go out into the forest once a day to talk to the new species. The aliens are know as Pequenios or more commonly "piggies". The Starway Congress has told the xenologers to gather information about the piggies but to not give them any information about the human worlds. This process makes learning about the piggies very slow going. Until one other person from the colony joins in on their research. 
Novinha's parents died when she was very young. Her parents were the biologist for the colony. They discovered a cure for a disease that was crippling the colony, but not before they themselves were stuck with the sickness. She had been living alone and in silence for many years. At the age of thirteen she wants to take the exam to become the new biologist. Pipo is charged with the task of figuring out why this young girl wants to take the test. Novinha explains that she wants to learn more about the piggies. She wants to be able to speak their story and know their past. Pipo agrees to let her take the test and help him and Libo with the research about the piggies. 
Years go by with more and more things being found out about the piggies. Rooter is one of the piggies that commonly converses with the xenologers. During the years of supposed peace Rooter get murdered by the other piggies. His chest is cut open and his organs are spread out onto the ground. There is also a tree planted inside of him. All three of them are confused. They know that it is some peace to a puzzle they cannot figure out. 
One day Novinha was looking over slides from all of the animals and plants on Lusitania and she finds a connection. Pipo looks over her research and figures out something about the piggies that they had not previously known. He rushes off the ask the piggies if this is true. He ends up just like rooter. Cut open with his organs spread out. Libo and Novinha are crushed. Libo wants to know what made Pipo go out into the forest and Novinha will not show him because she does not want him to end up the same way. Novinha is crushed and calls on a speaker to come help make sense of Pipo's death. 
This is where Ender comes in. He hears about the death and decides to go to speak the death of Pipo. He knows this time Valentine cannot come with him. She is having a child and found the man she wants to spend her life with. He leaves on a journey that to him will only seem like weeks but to Valentine and to the people on Lusitania it will be 22 years. When he arrives things are much different than when he left. 
The already exciting plot takes off from there, but the fantastic plot is not the only reason to read this book. The characters are so interesting. They are not the most complex characters ever written. Their motives are often easily seen and the truth can easily be found because most of what they do is out of love. Just as the humans in the book have to decide if the piggies are aliens or people the reader also must decide. Thinking about what actions of the characters I found most interesting I starting thinking about the piggies first. Their actions have reason. The piggies are not mindless animals. When they killed Pipo and than later Libo they have reasons. There is motivation behind every characters action in this book. 
Speaker for the Dead, just like Ender's Game, will mess your mind a little. Both books show humans going to point of extreme in the human mind. Ender's Game was more about what people could be pushed to do when trying to save their own race. It showed how impersonal and uncaring the human race can be. Speaker for the Dead showed how compassionate and understanding the human race can be. Ender and so many other's on Lusitania risked everything they had to help the piggies. They defied the Starways Congress to come to the aid of a race that many people did not even consider anything but animals. After reading Ender's Game I was stuck wondering how far I could go. How many people I would harm to ensure that my life would stay safe, which are not very happy thoughts. After Speaker for the Dead I am stuck wondering if if I can stand up for the things I find morally right if they will cause harm to me. I can only aspire to be like Pipo and Libo in all situations that require sticking to what I believe. 
Speaker for the Dead is one of those books that I think everyone would enjoy. Yes it is Science-Fiction which is not always up everyone's alley, but it is very approachable. When I first read Ender's Game the way it was described to me I was afraid. I was worried that it was going to take hours of reading to just understand one chapter, but it turned out to be just the opposite. At the beginning for Speaker of the Dead I felt overwhelmed with all of the new information about this distant planet, but it got better. Keep going. The plot will pick up after about ten pages. The book is well worth even the work. 
Enjoy and Read On!! 
Lindsey 

Persuasion by Jane Austen

Dear Readers,
Can there be a more appropriate time of the year for me to read a Jane Austen novel? Valentine's day is coming up and this book fits the romantic bill. The book is mostly about love, but it is the better kind of romance novel. It is not all sex and lust. It is about love, about longing for the other half of your heart, about finding the person you are meant to be with. Miss Jane Austen did romance the right way.
Anne Elliot is the main character of this fantastic book. She is one of those characters that do not act like main characters. Miss Anne is the youngest of the three Elliot daughters. The middle sister is married, the oldest takes care of the estate and helps their father, and Anne takes more of a back seat.
At the beginning of the book her father decides to rent out their estate because money is running short. Sir Walter Elliot and Miss Elizabeth Elliot are to move to the exciting city of Bath. Anne has no desire to move with her father and sister. Instead she goes to live with Mary for a few months until a family friend, Mrs. Russell, is back in town to take her in. While visiting Mary she is thrown into the social circle of the Mussgroves. Included in this circle is the man she once loved, Captain Frederick Wentworth.
Eight years previous Captain Wentworth was not a captain, had no money and no land, but had a heart full of love for Anne. Anne was persuaded to break off their engagement because of the lack of money. She has secretly regretted the decision. Seeing him again puts her in quite in a conundrum. Now that he has money and a title Captain Wentworth is looking for a wife to spend his life with. Who Captain Wentworth ends up with is no surprise. It ends the way most romance novels end, but the way it gets there is interesting, exciting, and full of suspense.  
Besides the wonderful love story to book contains excellent commentary on the sexes. One of the main points of the novel is whether men or women remember past love longer. A few suitors for Anne in the book lost wives with in a few months of meeting her. The question of whether they can move on that fast is brought to light. During one conversation between Anne and Captain Harville this is discussed at length. Eventually Anne comes to the conclusion that men love "so long as you have an object. I mean that while the your love lives, and lives for you. All the privilege I claim for my own sex (it is not a very enviable one, you need not covet it) is that loving the longest, when existence or when hope is gone." Women will be in love even when there is no hope of being with the man they love. Anne after being persuaded to leave the man she loved was still in love with him. She knew that after rejecting Captain Wentworth he may never take her back but even with little to no hope she still loved.
Love is a silly thing. Sometimes we cannot understand it, but Miss Austen did a very good job of explaining lost love and rekindled flames in Persuasion.
Lindsey

A Most Dangerous Profession by Karen Hawkins

Dear Readers,

Can I start out by saying I am sorry. I have let you and myself down. I read this book. I didn't want to. I didn't mean to, but it was sitting on my shelf and in my moment of weakness I cracked it open. I was fiction starved. I have been reading a very lengthy in-depth biography of Julie Child and my mind needed some mindless, meaningless fiction. It was kind of like a one night stand with a book. I liked it while I was reading it. I couldn't put it down. I was engrossed in the total fictitious setting and characters. After reading it however I felt kind of dirty and used. I didn't want to admit that I liked it and even wanted to read the other books in the series. All I can do is sit here and shake my head at how stupid I feel now. So stupid...
How this book ended up on my shelf and in the reach of my fiction needy hands is kind of a funny story. I gave it to a friend as a gag gift for a play about a year ago. She was the old and lonely music teacher in the play. We joked that she would stay in her room and read these kind of novels for fun at night. She read it and laughed so hard at how bad it was. She read me a passage one day and I said that I just had to read it. With no reluctance she handed over the paperback. I kept saying I would read it. She kept asking me about it. Joking that once I finished we would have a book burning and rid the world of one copy of this book. So day, months, and eventually a year went by without me reading this "novel". I was so fiction hungry that even this worked to get me going. Such a shame. Guess we can have the book burning now.
Time for a little review of the book. I don't want to offend the author to much, but really?  I have one question. Why do people write things like this? Is there really a need? Maybe they write them just for the fiction starved who would devour anything resembling a novel. I just think that if you are going to write and you have some inkling of creative talent you should funnel it into something a little more important. Maybe they write them because really they have no inkling of writing talent. That's probably it because that is the vibe I got from "A Most Dangerous Profession".
Language: meh. Plot line: meh. Sex scenes: meh (come on there were only three. I should have just read 50 Shades for my romance novel slip up). Characters: meh. Really the book over all was meh. It was unrealistic. The characters were both gorgeous, they both had dangerous jobs, and they were married already even though they hated each other.  So the super attractive main female character Moria is a spy/con artist. The attractive main male Robert was suppose to catch her in the act like seven years ago. Instead of taking her in he has sex with her. She gets prego and instead of telling him she arranges a shame wedding and marries him. She leaves, has the kid, and then lives in peace for 7 years. Some dickhead who I can't even remember the name of takes the kid and blackmails Moria to find some box thing for him. In a surprising twist Robert is looking for the same thing. They rekindle there hot passionate love making from the years past. After having some long over due sex (it was like page 50 already and they hadn't gotten it on yet) they decided to work together and get the box and get their kid back. Robert has never met the child, but he feels a fatherly connection already. They get the box and almost get killed/raped by some crazy lord/duke/annoy dude. They have the box try to get the child and Robert gets hurt. The child is fine though. They all reconvene at Robert's house that he coincidentally bought and fixed up near Moria cottage where she raised the child. Robert decides that he wants his wife and kid to stay and they say yes and everyone is happy after all.
It was kind of one of those plot lines that everything falls in place just a little to easily. I guess for the lonely old ladies who these books are meant for they want that. This book emulates what they wanted to happen to them, but clearly didn't. They want a man in shinning armor to come and sweep them off their feet and have amazing sex with them. A Most Dangerous Profession was not for me though. It did satisfy the fiction gap I had, but it wasn't filling. I am still wanting more fiction. It was like a appetizer that you really didn't want but you ordered because you were hungry and didn't think that you could wait for the main course. I would just like to say don't read it dear readers, Just don't even try, unless you want to join in on the book burning with me.
Lindsey