recent reads

it's been a while since i've posted what i've been reading.  many of these books turned into favorites and i'd recommend them all.  happy summer reading!

David and Goliath (Malcolm Gladwell) - "...wiping out a town or a people or a movement is never as simple as it looks.  The powerful are not as powerful as they seem - nor the weak as weak."

Congratulations, by the way (George Saunders) - "Do all the other things, of course, the ambitious things -- travel, get rich, get famous, innovate, lead, fall in love, make and lose fortunes, swim naked in wild jungle rivers... but as you do, to the extent that you can, err in the direction of kindness."

 The Ocean at the End of the Lane (Neil Gaiman) - "I saw the world from above and below.  I saw that there were patterns and gates and paths beyond the real.  I saw all these things and understood them and they filled me, just as the waters of the ocean filled me.  Everything whispered inside me.  Everything spoke to everything, and I knew it all."

Floating City (Sudhir Venkatesh) - "Because this was New York City, and those twinkling lights were a million different worlds beckoning us with their delicious possibilities of knowledge and commerce.  We might not know all the answers, but at least we knew what we had to do..."

The Perfume Collector (Kathleen Tessaro) - “She took down one of the vials from the shelf. Jasmin de la Mer, the label said. Opening it, she sniffed the cork. Its contents had long since evaporated, leaving a slightly grainy amber residue at the bottom of the bottle. But there was a ghost of the intensely white bloom, undercut by a coolness, an almost metallic airiness, slicing through the depth and lushness that lingered still.”

The Cuckoo's Calling (Robert Galbraith) - “He had hoped to spot the flickering shadow of a murderer as he turned the file's pages, but instead it was the ghost of Lula herself who emerged, gazing up at him, as victims of violent crimes sometimes did, through the detritus of their interrupted lives.”

RECENT READS

A little taste of what I was reading last month (okay, two months ago now)....

AND THE MOUNTAINS ECHOED (Khalid Hosseini) "I have been absent.  Absent for all the meals Thalia and Mama have shared at this table, the laughs, the quarrels, the stretches of bordem, the illnesses, the long string of simple rituals that make up a lifetime.  Entering my childhood home is a little disorienting, like reading the end of a novel I'd started, then abandoned, long ago."

WONDER (R. J. Palacio) "Mom says the farting nurse turned out to be a nice woman... Mom remembers exactly what the nurse whispered in her ear when the doctor told her I probably wouldn't live through the night: 'Everyone born of God overcometh the world.'  And the next day, after I had lived through the night, it was that nurse who help mom's hand when they brought her to meet me for the first time...She had been preparing herself for the seeing of me.  But she said that when she looked down into my tiny mushed up face for the first time, all she could see was how pretty my eyes were."

ALLEGIANT (Veronica Roth) "He picks up one of the bigger maps.  It shows the entire globe, pressed flat like kneaded dough.  I stare at it long enough to make sense of the shapes on it, the blue stretches of water and the multicolored pieces of land.  On one of the pieces is a red dot.  He points at it, 'That dot covers all the places we've ever been.  You could cut that piece of land out of the ground and sink it into this ocean and no one would ever notice... So everything I've ever worried about or said or done, how can it possibly matter...it doesn't.'  'Of course it does,' I say.  'All that land is filled with people, everyone of them different, and the things they do to each other matter.' "

INSURGENT (Veronica Roth) " 'Insurgent,' he says.  'Noun / A person who acts in opposition to the established authority, who is not necessarily regarded as belligerent.' I look at Fernando.  The last time I broke into a factions headquarters, I did it with a gun in my hand and I left bodies behind me.  I want this time to be different.  I need this time to be different. 'I like it' I say. 'Insurgent.  It's perfect.' "

RECENT READS

Although different in every way imaginable, I'd recommend every one of these books.  Thought provoking and entertaining, each in it's own unique way.  I can truly say the last few months of reading have been enjoyable and inspiring.

WHERE'D YOU GO BERNADETTE (Maria Semple) "Mom disappears into thin air two days before Christmas without telling me? Of course it’s complicated. Just because it’s complicated, just because you think you can’t ever know everything about another person, it doesn't mean you can't try."

DEFENDING JACOB (William Landay) "Gradually the beach would get quieter as the other guests left to get ready for dinner.  The lifeguards would drag the empty beach chairs across the sand and stack them for the night, making a clatter, and finally the lifeguards themselves would leave, and only a few sunset gazers would linger on the beach.  We would look out into the distance, where two arms of land reached out to encircle the little bay, and the horizon would burn yellow then red then indigo.  Looking back on it now, I picture my happy family of three sitting on that beach at sunset and I want to freeze the story there.  We must have looked so normal..."

SONGS OF THE HUMPBACK WHALE (Jodi Picoult) "Oliver said once that at certain places south of San Diego you can see whales from the coast, without binoculars.  When I asked him where they were going, he laughed.  Where would you go? he said, but I was afraid to tell him.  In time, I learned.  I discovered that Alaska to Hawaii and Nova Scotia to Bermuda were the parallel paths of two humpback whale stocks.  I learned that the West Coast whales and the East Coast whales did not cross paths.  Where would you go?"

THE GREAT GATSBY (F. Scott Fitzgerald) "He smiled understandingly -- much more than understandingly.  It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it...it faced...the whole external world for an instant, and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor.  It understood you just as far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself, and assured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey."

MEDICINE WOMAN (Lynn Andrews) "You don't know what you are...There is no explaining why you are born, or why you are the animated part of the Earth you are."

THE DEVIL'S HIGHWAY (Luis Alberto Urrea) "Five men stumbled out of the mountain pass so sunstruck they didn't know their own names, couldn't remember where they'd come from, had forgotten how long they'd been lost.  One of them wandered back up a peak.  One of them was barefoot. They were burned nearly black, their lips huge and cracking, what paltry drool still available to them spuming from their mouths in a salty foam as they walked.  Their eyes were cloudy with dust, almost too dry to blink up a tear.  Their hair was hard and stiffened by old sweat...old sweat because their bodies were no longer sweating.  They were drunk from having their brains baked in the pan, they were seeing God and devils, and they were dizzy from drinking their own urine, the poisons clogging their systems."

DIVERGENT (Veronica Roth) "I lift my head.  My neck aches.  I have been curled up with my back against the wall for at least a half hour, listening to the roaring wind and watching the city smear past us.  I sit forward.  The train has slowed down in the past few minutes, and I see that...The Dauntless in the cars ahead of us are jumping out as the train passes a rooftop.  The tracks are seven stories up...On three we launch off the train car.  A weightless moment, and then my feet slam into solid ground and pain prickles through my shins.  The jarring landing sends me sprawling on the rooftop, gravel under my cheek.  I release Christina's hand.  She's laughing.  "That was fun," she says."

LET'S EXPLORE DIABETES WITH OWLS (David Sedaris) "I've gone from avoiding dentists and periodontists to practically stalking them, not in some quest for a Hollywood smile but because I enjoy their company.  I'm happy in their waiting rooms, the coffee tables heaped with Gala and Madame Figaro.  I like their mumbled French, spoken from behind Tyvek masks....That's me...traipsing down the stairs in a fresh set of clothes, my smile bittersweet and drearied with blood, counting the days until I can come back and return myself to this to this curious, socialized care."

GOOD READ

I've always loved to read.  There's nothing better than browsing through a bookstore... the smell of the books and being surrounded by so many wonderful stories.  In college, I had a hard time balancing pleasure reading with academic readings but, now that I've created more time for myself since graduation, I've gotten back into it.  Last winter, I found the amazing website goodreads.  It's such a great place to keep track of what you're reading and what you hope to read in the future.  There are so many helpful book recommendations based on what you have liked in the past and you can even get involved in virtual bookclubs.  Add me as a friend and we can share what we've been reading!

THE WEEKENDER

{a shot of the Lion's Gate Bridge I took while visiting cousins in Vancouver last summer}

I can't believe its already the weekend again.  And I'm already headed back to the east coast!  My cousin is graduating from Dartmouth and we are on our way to celebrate with him.  I'll be driving through some familiar territory (a similar route I used to take when I would drive to school in Dayton) and some new (hopefully beautiful!) areas of the country I haven't seen before.  Here are some fun weekender links for you....

This is my favorite playlist to listen to while spending an evening cooking, eating, and enjoying wine in the kitchen with my family.

Have you seen these funny and interesting maps of the United States?

Safe Haven was my first Nicholas Sparks book and I liked it so much that I'm going to try out this memoir during the drive to Dartmouth!  I heard it's a little different than his others so I'm really excited.

I'm also going to be reading this.  Alex was reading it on the beach last weekend and it seemed so uplifting and interesting.

As a fresh graduate with no current employment I have been scouring Netflix for a new show and ran across Private Practice.  I'm a huge Grey's fan and am always a little late on TV shows so it's so perfect for me.  I've been loving it!

I hope you have a wonderful weekend!