Book Report: A Tale For The Time Being

It's been awhile since I wrote about a book...with a few exceptions, my recent reads were dismissed soon after finishing the last page. That's how it goes sometimes, especially if I'm not giving reading my full attention. On a recent trip I had quiet time to really dive into a story which had been sitting on my bedside table all year. A Tale For The Time Being is a story about a young American girl in Japan who wrote about her life in a journal...the bullying she gets at school, her love for her Buddhist nun great-grandmother, her admiration for her kamikaze pilot uncle, and her fear for her suicidal father. The journal is found in a packet washed up on an island in Canada by a woman who is struggling to write her own story. The book flips back and forth between the girl, Naoki, and the woman, Ruth, as she reads the girl's journal (I love books with multiple points of view!). Ruth, gets really absorbed in the Nao's fate, and shadows of Nao's story start to creep into her life. This book was a page turner and so interesting and unique with the teenage drama, all the mysteries, the bits of philosophy, and even a splash of quantum physics. Highly recommended! 

(I link books to Green Apple Books in San Francisco...my favorite local bookstore...but they don't know me and I get no kickbacks)

Book Report: Recent Reads

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. A page-turning, he said/she said tale of a wife gone missing. I might be the last person to have read this book...but just in case someone else out there hasn't read it, I'm not going to say much more. I enjoyed the page-turning quality of it, but I might have known too much about the plot to have been dazzled. I'll probably watch the movie when it is online, though. Ben Affleck is  perfect casting.

The Handmaids Tale by Margaret Atwood. This is a story of a dystopian future, one that could be even more relevant today than when it was published in the conservative 1980s. It's a chilling story of religious extremism and the oppression and exploitation of women.

Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier. This is a very good book which novelizes the lives of two female fossil hunters living on the coast of England in the 1800s when paleontology was really just beginning. The story is enriched by talk of gender, science, and religion without getting too heavy and only a tiny bit soap-opera-y.

National Geographic. I got hooked on the @natgeo Instagram feed and had to get a full issue after seeing great photos and sneak peeks at articles. I read the issue cover to cover and got another the next month. And again today. When is the last time you looked at one?

Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin. After nearly 9 years in "The City" I though it was time to read this book, especially since it is the 2014 choice for the San Francisco Public Library One City One Book program. It originally appeared as a serial in the newspaper in the late 70's, so the chapters are short and the story feels a little choppy, but you definitely want to know what happens next. It's kind of amazing how much San Francisco hasn't changed at it's core. I'll eventually read the sequel.

I'm currently reading a non-fiction selection: "An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth" What have you read lately? 

I link to Green Apple Books because they are my fave local bookstore...the only kickbacks I get from them are when they give me store credit for used books!