Title: In the Company of Soldiers
Author: Rick Atkinson

Your thoughts:
This is an excellent account by an embedded reporter from the Washington Post of the initial days of the invasion of Iraq, post-9/11. Atkinson provides profiles of the various generals, colonels and “regular soldiers,” but he is directly attached to General Petraeus and the 101st Airborne Division. Petraeus is presently the four-star in charge of all US forces in Iraq, so it’s very interesting to see a profile of him during the initial invasion, with the attendant problems and snafus. And, in light of what’s transpired in the last 4 years, it’s illuminating to be reminded of who said what when. Not light reading, but very interesting. jpq

Memory Keeper's Daughter

Title: Memory Keeper's Daughter
Author: Kim Edwards

Edwards does a beautiful job of showing the reader what a secret can do to a family. The secret built a wall between the parents. The keeper of the secret hid behind it and the other kept trying to get around or through a wall she could not see or understand but knew it was there. The secret kept them from truly knowing each other. The children could not connect with their parents because of the walls between and around the parents.

Of course I enjoyed the parts of the book about photography but I could also relate to all the characters because none were perfect. The father was remote and closed. The mom was in pain with no one to comfort her. The nurse who was the most caring and giving had some mixed motives for doing what she did.

-vicky

Everything is Illuminated

Title: Jonathan Safran Foer
Author: Everything is Illuminated

Jonathan Safran Foer uses three voices in this book. One of a translator writing to his client back in the United State. The second is the same translator writing the story of their journey together and the third is the client back in the states writing his personal history which he discovered on his journey with the translator. I enjoyed the contrast of the mythic proportions of the historical story with the down to earth details of the journey. Its a very different book and I recommend it if you are looking for something new and different to read.

The Project Museum. What do you think of this site?

-vicky

Fast Forward

Title: Fast Forward
Editor: Lou Anders

At the LRW Library we have a bi-weekly book meeting. The next one is tomorrow so I was preparing for it by reviewing the journals and picking books to buy. This book was listed. It looked good and other's had suggested we buy it as well. Then coincidence steps in and as i am reading my blogs tonight i find an entry about the book in Boing Boing. Here's Cory Doctorow's take on this new SF collection.

-vicky

World's Fair

Title: World's Fair
Author: E.L. Doctorow


World's Fair received the 1986 National Book Award.

Answer.com says "World's Fair. Set during the 1939 World's Fair, the novel focuses on a young boy growing up in the Bronx and a world still coming out of the Depression, poised on the eve of World War II. It includes a loving picture of home life, a sense of secure domesticity that is relatively rare in the annals of great American fiction."

I absolutely disagree with the last sentence. Through out the story I felt a sense that the domestic life could crumble at any moment.

I enjoyed reading about NYC during the 1939 World's Fair.

-vicky