Recent Reads

41. Cyrus the Unsinkable Sea Serpent
42. The Ant and the Elephant
43. Eli
My 8 year old nephew, Jonah, is really into Bill Peet at the moment. The kid stocks up every day on more books to read. So love that. He was over for a play date and brought three for us to read. These short stories are quite fun, and I do love the illustrations. Rating: 3 stars each.

44. The Dog Stars
Nine years after a deadly plague kills almost everyone, the world is as you might imagine it to be. We zoom into a town in Colorado and meet Hig, his dog Jasper, and the gun-toting Bangley. They have carved out a place of relative safety, and other than short flights (Hig is a pilot), and hunting trips into the nearby mountains, they are hunkered down. This is a different type of post-apocalyptic story, in that it is more a meditation on the loss, isolation, melancholy, and need for connection that plagues Hig. We spend a lot of time in his head.

I listened to the the audio book wonderfully narrated by Mark Deakins. The sentences are choppy, and often feel unfinished, or like you missed something, and Mark captured that sense of fragmentation really well. I really liked the first half of the book, but felt like the story dragged on for too long, and the last several chapters seemed rather rushed. While I enjoyed the lyrical writing, I was not sucked into the story, and you know there is a problem when as a cat person, I found the dog to be the most interesting character. Rating: 3 stars.

45. The Courage to Start: A Guide to Running for Your Life
I recently completed a 5K running program, and am currently obsessed with all things running. As a beginner runner, this book was just right - advice, lessons learned, motivation - perfect for reading in chunks while resting tired legs at night. It is the "What to Expect When You are Expecting" book for newbie runners. Rating: 4 stars.