Life of Pi by Yann Martel (audio)

★★★ 1/2

"If you stumble about believability, what are you living for?  Love is hard to believe, ask any lover.  Life is hard to believe, ask any scientist.  God is hard to believe, ask any believer.  What is your problem with hard to believe?"

Pi Patel is a young boy from India who is the son of zookeepers.  When him and his family and their animals travels to North America, their ships sinks.  Pi is the only human survivor - along with a hyena, an orangutan, a wounded zebra, and a tiger named Richard Parker.  Within a few days, the tiger devours the other animals and he is left on a lifeboat with Pi.  They survive 227 days in the Pacific Ocean before finding land.  

When they reach Mexico, Richard Parker runs off to the jungle.  Pi is questioned by Japanese authorities about what happened to the ship and how he survived.  Pi tells his story - but it is deemed "unbelievable" and they ask for a story without animals. Pi tells another story, similar to his original, but instead of animals be used people - his mother, a sailor, and a cook.  Readers are left at the end of the novel wondering which story is true.

This was a very interesting novel.  I wasn't sure what I was expecting when I read it - and it was different from the type of books I normally read and a little hard to get through.  Overall, I enjoyed Pi's story and it's unique ending.  I assumed the entire novel would be about Pi and Richard Parker's survival on the lifeboat, but the author gave a lot more detail about Pi and his family's life before the journey.  There was a lot of interesting writing about the zoo and behavior of animal in captivity. Pi was also very involved in religion.  As a young boy, he practiced Christianity, Islam, and Hindu - all at the same time.  He claimed that he loved God and wanted to be a part of each religions.  This worked out well, until the leaders of each of the three religions and his parents found out and told him that he must choice only one.  I was really interested in this debate.  I am Christian, but have always enjoyed learning about other religions.  As I was learning about these many years ago, I always thought it would be kinda neat if people could practice whatever aspect of different religions they felt was right for them.  Religion is also a very unique concept and I found it intriguing that different groups of people believe so strongly in their different religions - and most believe that theirs and only theirs with the "right" religion.  Pi went against this commonality and wanted to practice all of the common religions around him.  As a boy, he did not think there was anything strange or different about this - until he was questioned by "older and wiser" adults.

The Hours by Michael Cunningham (audio)

★★★★★

"We throw our parties; we abandon our families to live along in Canada; we struggle to write books that do not change the world, despite our gifts and our unstinting efforts, our most extravagant hopes.  We live our lives, do whatever we do, and then we sleep.  It's as simple and ordinary as that.  A few jump out windows, or drown themselves, or take pills; more die by accident; and most of us are slowly devoured by some disease, or, if we're very fortunate, by time itself.  There's just this for consolation: an hour here or there when our lives seem, against all odds and expectations, to burst open and give us everything we've ever imagined, though everyone but children (and perhaps even they) know these hours will inevitably be followed by others, far darker and more difficult."

"What I wanted to do seemed simple.  I wanted something alive and shocking enough that it could be a morning in some body's life.  The most ordinary morning.  Imagine, trying to do that."

I tried reading this book a few years ago, and failed miserably.  I'm not sure why.  Now am I'm going through my bookshelves and listening to the books I haven't read yet, I came across it again.  I wasn't expecting to love it.  It was just another book to check of the list.  But I found myself drawn in from the first line.  The language was beautiful and the style of the novel reminded me of The Reader by Bernhard Schlink. It was a relatively short and simple story, but extremely profound and brilliant.  

I loved the idea of three women connected by a single book, Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf.  Their stories fit so effortlessly together in so many ways:

• Virginia Woolf in 1923 begins to write the new novel, Mrs. Dalloway.  She suffers from severe depression and desperately wants to move back to London with her husband.

• Clarissa Vaughan is the modern-day Mrs. Dalloway.  She is planning a party for her good friend (and former lover) Richard who is receiving a poetry away and dying of AIDS.  She goes through her day planning for the party: running errands, talking to old friends, and reflecting on Richard.  Charissa is happy with her partner Sally, but constantly thinks about how her life would have been different if her and Richard would have stayed together.

• Laura Brown is a young wife and mother living in a Los Angeles suburb in 1949.  Her husband and son are perfect in every way, but she is not content with her simple life.  She begins the morning reading Mrs. Dalloway in bed and dreading the day where she will have to make a cake and celebrate her husband's birthday.  She goes through the day - exhausted and just wanting to read her book.  I didn't particularly like her, but I did find something appealing and familiar about just wanting to lose yourself in a good book instead of constantly going through the motions of everyday life.

I wish I would have read Mrs. Dalloway before reading this, but then again, maybe it will be interesting to read the book after as well.  

  

Divergent by Veronica Roth

★★★ 1/2
"We believe in ordinary acts of bravery, in the courage that drives one person to stand up for another."

This book wasn't the next Harry Potter.  Or Twilight.  Or even the next Hunger Games.  Not for me anyways.  The story was engaging, and I did enjoy reading it, but I don't have a huge desire to read the next two books right away.  The world that Veronica Roth created was interesting enough and I really liked the idea of grouping everyone into a world by a single character trait (which we know from the beginning is going to fail).  I tried placing myself in a facet, and it was impossible to pick just one.  True to real-life, there are so many positives and negatives of a single characteristic! After reading the book, I felt that there was a little too much focus on the action of the training and not enough on exploring the world and the character.  

Looking forward to seeing how the movie is when it comes out :)

The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown (audio)

★★★★

"Meaning that history is always written by the winners.  When two cultures clash, the loser is obliterated, and the winner writes the history books - books which glorify their own cause and siparage that conquered foe.  As Napoleon once said, 'What is history, but a fable agreed upon?'...The Sangreal documents simply tell the other side of the Christ story.  In the end, which side of the story you believe becomes a matter of faith, and personal exploration, but at least the information has survived."

By looking at the reviews on goodreads and amazon, everyone either seemed to love or hate this book.  I wouldn't say that this was one of the best books I've ever read, but I did enjoy it.  There was a lot going, and some parts got a little confusing, but that might have been because I was listening to it instead of actually reading the book.  I first watched the movie when it came out in 2006 (wow that seems like so long ago!!!) and the book has been sitting on my bookshelf ever since.  Glad I finally got the chance to read...or I guess I should say "listen" to it!

The novel tells the a contemporary story of the famous search for the "Holy Grail."  While lecturing in Paris, the symbologist Robert Langdon becomes involved with the murder of a famous curator at the Louvre.  Shortly before his death, he left a secret message to his grand-dauther, Sophie Neveu.  When Robert is accused of the murder, he and Sophie begin a chase across France to find out the truth about the death of Sophie's grand-father.  They quickly discover that the clues reveal the truth about a two-hundred year old mystery - and about the involvement of Sophie's family.

There were a lot of things that I really liked about this book:

     1.) Historical information - Throughout the story, are all kinds of facts about Western history and religion including Da Vinci's paintings, the legend of the holy grail, the portrayal of women, and Christianity.  I'm not sure how much was fact and how much was Brown's interpretation, but I enjoyed it none the less.

     2.) Paris - The novel was mostly set in Paris and the author used the scenery and well-known places throughout the book.  I spent two weeks in Paris a couple years ago, so it was really neat to remember all of the places the were mentioned in the book.  My aunt and cousins went right after right after the movie came out.  They not only saw it at a theater in Paris, but traced the route that Robert and Sophie took...it turned out to be a really awesome scrapbook page!!

     3.) Information literacy - This is going to sound really dorky, but I LOVED all of the research that was incorporate into the novel.  My favorite part was when Robert and Sophie visit the curator of a religious museum and search for articles in a database that will lead then to a tomb where a key item in solving the mystery of the holy grail is hidden.  I was super excited that they used actual research terminology like keywords, truncations, and proximity searching!!!

Definitely worth reading!

The Lightning Thief: Percy Jackson and the Olympians Book #1 by Rick Riordan

★★★

"Even strength must bow to wisdom sometimes."

I've been meaning to read this book for awhile and finally got the chance the month for book club (click here).  It was pretty good for a children's book.  I felt like this area of children's books has been a little over done lately.  This reminded me a lot of Harry Potter (which I LOVED), but with Greek history instead of wizards and magic.  I did enjoy re-learning about Greek and Roman mythology though.  And I liked the idea of how the Gods would adapt to out world today.

1984 by George Orwell

★★★

"War is peace.  Freedom is slavery.  Ignorance is strength."

1984 is one of those books that I've always meant to read, but never got around to until now.  I'm still not quiet sure how I feel about this book.  When I first started it, I must have picked it up and put it back down again at least a dozen times. It took me until about page 80 or so before I was actually able to stick with it.  It was interesting and thought-provoking, but not really something I actually enjoyed reading it.  

Orwell creating in erie, but realistic future in which the world is run exclusively by "Big Brother," an organization that controls not only all political aspects of the world, but people's minds as well. Winston Smith is a typical citizen - he follows the rules of the party and works for the Minister of Truth, where he rewrites the past.  Even though he secretly despises Big Brother, he would never reveal this to anyone. Then he begins a relationship with his co-worker Julia and is thrown into a world of uncertainly and betrayal.

What surprised me the most about this novel was how realistic Orwell's perception of the future was - especially after learning that it was written in 1948, almost forty years before the novel takes place.  

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

★★★

"A lady's imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony in a moment."

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

★★★

"Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said.  A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made.  Or a garden planted.  Something your hand touched someway so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you're there.

It doesn't matter what you do, he said, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that's like you after you take your hands away.  The difference between the man who just cuts lawns and a real gardener is in the touching, he said.  The lawn-cutter might just as well not have been there at all; the gardener will be there a lifetime."

"There must be something in books, something we can't imagine, to make a women stay in a burning house; there must be something there.  You don't stay for nothing."

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

★★★

"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly in to the past."

"I hope she'll be a fool - that's the bast thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool."

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum

★★★★

"No matter how dreary and grey our homes are, we people of flesh and blood would rather live there than any other country, be it ever so beautiful.  There is no place like home."

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

★★★★★

" 'One more time?  For the audience?' he says.  His voice isn't angry.  It's hallow, which is worse.  Already the boy with the bread is slipping away from me.  I take his hand, holding on tightly, preparing for the cameras, and dreading the moment when I will finally have to let go."

"Happy Hunger Games!  And many the odds be ever in your favor."

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

★★★

"Honeybees depend not only on physical contact with the colony, but also require it's social companionship and suppose.  Isolate a honeybee from her sisters and she will soon die."

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C. S. Lewis

★★★★

"Most of us, I suppose, have a secret country but for most of us it is only an imaginary country.  Edmund and Lucy were luckier than other people in that respect."

Prince Caspian by C. S. Lewis

★★★★

"Things never happen the same way twice."

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis

★★★★

"I wrote this story for you, but when I began it I had not realized that girls grow quicker than books.  As a result you are already too old for fairy tales, and by the time it is printed and bound you will be older still.  But some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.  You can then take it down from some upper shelf, dust it, and tell me what you think of it.  I shall probably be too deaf to hear, and too old to understand a word you say, but I shall still be your affectionate Godfather, C. S. Lewis."

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

★★★★★

"Wasn't that the point of the book?  For women to realize.  We are just two people.  Not that much separates us.  Not nearly as much as I thought."

One Day by David Nicholls

★★★★★

"What ever happens tomorrow, we'll have today.  I'll always remember."

" 'What are you going to do with your life?'  In one way or another it seemed that people had been asking her this forever; teachers, her parents, friends at three in the morning, but the question had never seemed this pressing and still she was no nearer the answer... 'Live each day as if it's your last,' that was the concentional advice, but really, who had the energy for that?  What if it rained or you felt a bit glandy?  It just wasn't practical.  Better by far to be good and courageous and bold and to make a difference.  Not change the world exactly, but the bit around you.  Cherish your friends, stay true to your principles, live passionately and fully and well.  Experience new things.  Love and be loved if you ever get the chance."

The Reader by Bernhard Schlink

★★★★★

"At the same time I ask myself, as I had already begun to ask myself back then: What should our second generation have done...We should not believe we can comprehend the incomprehensible, we may not inquire because to inquire is to make the horrors an object of discussion, even if the horrors themselves are not questioned, instead of accepting them as something in the face of which we can only fall silent in revulsion, shame, and guilt."

"I looked at Hanna's handwriting and saw how much energy and struggle the writing had cost her.  I was proud of her.  At the same time, I was sorry for her, sorry for her delayed and failed life, sorry for the delays and failures of life in general."

"In the first few years after Hanna's death.  I was tormented by the old questions of whether I had denied and betrayed her, whether I was guilty for having loved her.  Sometimes I asked myself if I was responsible for her death.  And sometimes I was in a rage at her and at what she had done to me.  Until finally the rage faded and the questions ceased to matter.  Whatever I had done or not done, whatever she had done or not to me-it was the path my life had taken."

"What would you have done?"

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

★★★

"I've had many enemies over the years.  If there's one thing I've learned, it's never engage in a fight you're sure to lose.  On the other hand, never let anyone who has insulted you get away with it.  Bide your time and strike back when you're in a position of strength-even if you no longer need to strike back."

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

★★★★

"I'm not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship."

"I've got the key to my castle in the air, but whether I can unlock the door remains to be seen."

"Love Jo all your days, if you choose, but don't let it spoil you , for it's wicked to throw away so many good gifts because you can't have the one you want.