Read in May

"In an era in which everyone has a truth and the means to fling it around the world, an era in which knowledge is increasingly broad but seldom deep, maybe that's the ultimate act of sedition: to pick up a single book and read it." Leonard Pitts.

Let's call this the month of reading books that have been made into movies...

Finished
Atonement. Ian McEwan.

The Hatbox Baby. Carrie Brown

Persepolis. Marijane Satrapi

Gone, Baby, Gone. Dennis Lahane

Lucky. Alice Sebold

The Painted Veil. W. Somerset Maugham. (25 May)

Started but didn't finish.
I Should Be Extremely Happy in Your Company: A Novel of Lewis and Clark by Brian Hall

My review

rating: 1 of 5 stars
I really, really wanted to like this book. Really. As a former history major, I should welcome such well-written first-person historical fiction about the Lewis and Clark Expedition. But I didn't like this book. I didn't like it 10 pages in and I didn't like it after reading 50 pages. Hall wonderfully creates his characters: Lewis, Clark, Sacajawea and eventually Sacajawea's husband, though I didn't get that far. The language painted vivid pictures in my mind. The plot pacing was good. I just did not like it. I tried, but I didn't.

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Rodale Book of Composting: Easy Methods for Every Gardener" src="http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1180348844m/1029033.gif" border="0"> The Rodale Book of Composting: Easy Methods for Every Gardener by Deborah L. Martin

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars
All you need to know to get started composting. I skimmed this book and found it handy. I especially liked the many different plans that one could use to build home composers.


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Enneagram at Work" src="http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1189868662m/1891045.jpg" border="0"> Getting Your Boss's Number; And Many Other Ways to Use the Enneagram at Work by Michael J. Goldberg

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars
A good "how to get along with people at work" sort of book, it also included interesting information about the nine Enneagram types. For instance, when I tell stories about my childhood my mother always says, "Why do you always remember the bad things?" Whichsurprises me, as I don't think the story in question is particularly "bad". It turns out that "eights" (of which I am one) have a whole narrative structure based on overcoming struggle. So while I've just told a great story about my triumph over whatever, my mother hears me complaining about my childhood. That was well worth the price of the book alone. (Although, full disclosure, I got it from the library and didn't pay anything.)

A great book if you are at your wit's end with dealing with someone at work, or in your life in general.


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Didn't even start.
In America. Susan Sontag.

The Way West. A.B. Guthrie, Jr.

Open Me. A Novel. Sunshine O'Donnell