booksrockcal's reviews
547 reviews

Blessed Water by Margot Douaihy

adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

i really loved the first book in this series about a gay, tattooed nun in New Orleans who solves crimes. In this second book, she is joining with the former fire inspector to form a detective agency.  When they are hired to find a philandering husband, instead they find the body of the priest from their parish floating in the river. When another priest goes missing, they know the issue is bigger than one case, eventually implicating the Diocese and the police department. The book is gritty and the mystery is compelling. however there were things that bothered me about this book. I wish the author had filled in more info about book 1 instead of assuming everyone had read it (i read it but could not remember all the details). also the events on easter saturday couldn’t have happened- every catholic church has an easter vigil, the characters would not have been able t9 stay in the ch such from dinner time on. ditto for the bishop hosting a fundraiser in Holy Thursday.  Still i enjoyed the story and the premise.  

German Art from Beckmann to Richter: Images of a Divided Country by Eckhart Gillen

dark emotional informative inspiring reflective slow-paced

3.75

excellent overview of art in Germany from the end of WWII ( and actually some of the pre and during the war art) until the present. very detailed and complete although I would have preferred a more linear discussion that put the art in the context of the era 

Dreaming the Beatles: The Love Story of One Band and the Whole World by Rob Sheffield

hopeful informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

3.5

I listened to this book on the history of the Beatles. I enjoyed the book as I love the Beatles and it contains many interesting facts about the band I didn’t know, along with the author’s own experiences as a Beatles fan about my age (becoming a fan after they broke up). I just wish the audiobook had clips of the songs being discussed. I kept wanting to stop and switch to apple music so i could listen to the songs being discussed 

Lisa and Lottie by Erich Kästner

funny hopeful lighthearted medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

My husband and I are going to Germany and I’ve been looking at lists of German books. I saw this story on which the Parent Trap movie was based on the list and picked it up. The book is the story of Lisa and Lottie, who discover at camp that they are twins and then switch places when camp ends, one going to Munich and the other to Vienna, so they can meet the other parent and so they can attempt to bring their parents back together. And it works ! It’s a very sweet middle grade novel. 

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

adventurous challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I first read portions of this book when our son Gabe was in high school. He didn’t like the book because the narrator is Death and it did not seem realistic to him but I was intrigued by what I read and always intended to return to it. Our upcoming trip to Germany provided a reason to read this book as it was recommended by our tour company (Road Scholar) and I’m sorry i did not read it previously. The book is indeed narrated by Death, an effective method to provide a removed commentary on the evil that caused the deaths in Nazi Germany. It is the story of Liesel, 9 years old in 1939 when she is taken in as a foster child by Hans and Rosa Habermann. Max teaches her to read, using the book she stole from the graveside before she got to the Habermann’s. The Habermann’s take in a Jewish man named Max, son of a friend from WWI, and hide him in the basement. Meanwhile Liesel steals more books, mostly from the library of the mayor and his wife where her foster mother does the laundry and life goes on in Germany, with Hitler Youth, the Nazi party loyalty tests, Death’s commentary of the Jews of Dachau being exterminated nearby alongside soccer games in the street, school for the children, wartime deprivations for all, and the constant fear of discovery by the Nazis of the Jewish man in the basement while Allied bombs get closer. This book is thought provoking and mind bending, showing ordinary Germans in settings we don’t typically see juxtaposed against the evils of Nazi Germany. This is marketed as a YA book but it’s for adults as well. Truly an eye opening book. I’m sorry it took me so long to read it. 

Kingmaker: Pamela Harriman's Astonishing Life of Power, Seduction, and Intrigue by Sonia Purnell

adventurous challenging emotional hopeful informative inspiring tense medium-paced

5.0

This was a terrific read about a woman who has fascinated me endlessly since I read Sally Bedell Smith’s biography in the 1990s. Sonia Purcell updates and expands the earlier biography and the general view of Pamela Churchill Harriman as a rarified courtesan who slept her way to marriages to rich people and ultimately the US ambassadorship to France. Purnell’s book demonstrates that the story is much more complex than that. Pamela Digby was 20 years old when she married Winston Churchill’s only son Randolph in 1940 and then gave birth to his son named for his grandfather. During the war Pamela was Churchill’s secret weapon, deployed to convince Americans to support the war- she met and Edward R. Murrow and Averell Harriman among others. After the war and her divorce from Randolph she went to Paris and then the US where she married Leland Hayward and then Averell Harriman , becoming an integral part of Broadway and Hollywood social sets and then emerged as a Democratic political power broker. Purcell shows that Harriman was smart and focused and used the tools available to advance her interests, whether they were to win the war for Britain ir win the White House for Bill Clinton.  She lived a fascinating life and this is a balanced biography that does not shy away from calling her a courtesan but recognizes that she used the tools she had to achieve her objectives.  

Orbital by Samantha Harvey

adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.25

I do not usually enjoy books marketed as science fiction novels or books in which nothing happens or books that are rendered with beautiful and lyrical writing and this one was marketed as and is all of those things. And I loved this book. I would not have picked it up except it won the Booker Prize and in my curiosity I read a description of it including a portion quoted from the book that described the earth. Well that hooked me and I was not disappointed. In this book six astronauts from different countries live together in a space station. The book takes place in one day which comprises 16 orbits of the earth. In that day the astronauts interact with each other and live their lives on the space station eating, conducting experiments, riding exercise equipment to keep their muscles from atrophying. They also think about their homes and families and reflect on love, life, loss, family, and community. One astronaut uses a postcard of  Velazquez’s painting Las Meninas to think about his wife (who gave him the postcard) and also about what one sees and how one looks at paintings - or any object or part of nature. The descriptions of earth as the space ship orbits are indeed lyrical and beautiful and honestly are worth reading the entire book just to read and ponder. 

In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin by Erik Larson

challenging dark informative sad tense medium-paced

4.25

I read this book as part of my preparation for our trip to Germany. It was dark and the opposite of uplifting although informative- I’m not sure I can process more depressing books like this one. Erik Larsen is a great writer and I really enjoy his books- this was no exception. This book follows Ambassador to Germany William Dodd, a University of Chicago history professor, and his family as they arrive in Berlin in 1933. At first they are enamored of the new Germany, and the ambassador’s daughter embarks of several affairs with German and then Russian officials. However their opinions change as the year proceeds and we go farther into the 1930s and Hitler’s actions against Jews and others he dislike are reported by the Ambassador to a largely deaf State Department in Washington, which is trying at all costs to avoid foreign wars. Nazis like Goerring and Goebbels appear in the book in social settings early on with some of their future behavior presaged by their actions earlier in the 30s. Reading to prepare for a trip to Germany is not as lighthearted as preparations for a trip to other locations. 

The splendor of Dresden : five centuries of art collecting (2d printing with additions and corrections) by Metropolitan Museum of Art

informative inspiring reflective relaxing medium-paced

4.75

I saw this exhibit as a high school student in a visit to Washington, D.C. as my great aunt, an art historian told me to attend. I did not fully understand then how groundbreaking it was in 1978 to see on display the treasures from Dresden, as I didn’t know at the time that Dresden had been nearly flattened by Allied bombs at the end of World War II and I didn’t appreciate how closed East Germany was at the time and how truly extraordinary it was to see these treasures in display at the National Gallery of Art incongruously displayed in the ultra modern and newly opened East Wing. To this day I remember the effect of seeing the objects on display, particularly the porcelains and the statues and the old master paintings by Titian and Canaletto. When my husband and I decided to take a trip to Germany that includes Dresden, I knew I had to get this book and to my delight it was available at the San Diego Public Library. I have enjoyed reading this book over the past three weeks, rediscovering the treasures of the exhibit and wondering where they are now, as East Germany opened to all 11 years after the exhibit. 

Reflections: Rebuilding the MFA by Sir Norman Foster

informative inspiring medium-paced

3.75

great overview of work by Foster and its influence on the expansion of the MFA Boston