book reviews

Yay, more books finished!

Kenneth Tingle, The Girl in the Italian Bakery. This is a local-boy-makes-good book about a kid growing up in the projects in a Massachusetts suburb and the various twists and turns of his life. It's told strictly from the child's point of view, with the result that the reader never truly understands what is happening around the kid - only what the kid himself knew, and the adult narrator never fills in the gaps, leaving a confusing story behind. The writing is passionate, the author clearly very motivated to tell his story, but it needs work that it's never going to get.

Johann Wyss, The Swiss Family Robinson. This is, of course, a reread - I've had this book since I was little and read it countless times. But this time I read it to my kids, which highlighted some of the fundamental implausibilities of the book, chief amongst them being the fact that the father is a walking encyclopedia who is completely capable of wresting civilization from the wilderness single-handedly and that the island they land on has every natural resource possible. Nonetheless, it's still an entertaining and interesting book with lots of excitement.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations. Caesar had a lot to say. One wonders if he actually lived by his precepts, or if he simply expected everyone else to. Overall, while it wasn't boring, I wasn't stirred by the writing, either.

Mabel Barbee Lee, Cripple Creek Days. An account of a little girl growing up in the Colorado mining camp. She pulled no punches about her childhood and the various hardships and issues involved in growing up in such a perilous location, but ultimately her experiences left me unmoved.