Coop: A family, a farm and the pursuit of one good egg

by Mathew Perry

I'm turning into quite a memoir lover. If it's well done, it is so enjoyable.

This journalist chronicled a certain time in his life, returning to his rural farm-dwelling life, with a new wife and child. He chronicles his victories - very few -- and failings -- plenty -- as he learns to be a farmer, husband and father.

It is very plain-spoken in its prose but lovely all the same.

Love, love, loved it.
More Michael Perry in my future I can see.

The Time Traveler's Wife

by Audrey Niffennegger

I almost didn't read this book because I had seen (some of) the movie and thought it was horrible.
Book? Way better.
It tells the story of Henry, a man who travels through time incessantly due to some unknowable genetic anomaly.
It is, at its heart, a love story. Somewhere along the line he meets Claire. They fall in love, have a child.
But the novel is free-flowing, moving from  scene where Claire is 10 and Henry 40, then back to a scene where Henry is 15 but his child is 8.
It can be confusing but if you relax and let it be what it is, the story is epic and the characters well-drawn. 

A Singular Woman

by Janny Scott

I don't read a lot of biographies but when I pick one up I'm usually happy I did.
This one features the mother of President Obama, a strange subject because for one, she's dead and two, she did nothing in her own life to earn fame.
Yet she was a distinctive woman and Scott's research seems impeccable.
Ann Dunham grew up in an ordinary way and went on to to extraordinary things with her life -- unusual and brave marriages, passionate career, dedication to a cause.
Proof the most ordinary of us is amazing. 

The Help

by Kathryn Stockett

I resisted this book for a long time. It was wildly popular when it came out, which made me suspicious. It sounded kind of sappy and sentimental.
I resisted.
Then it was almost immediately made into  movie, which made me resist it even more.
Finally I caved and was happy I did.
It's a story of black servants in the Deep South, as the civil rights movement was just beginning. It's the story of their employers. It's the story of what a very odd relationship that is.
Told through the voices of several of the servants and one of the white women, you felt the emotions strongly and got deep into the story.
Popular isn't evil, I need to learn.
Leastwise, not always.

The Book Thief

by Marcus Zusak

Hands down one of the most unique novels I've read in years.
In many ways it tells the story of WWII in Germany but from the aspect of a young girl and ...an angel of death?
Sounds way new-agey to describe but it's not.
Liesel goes to live with foster parents in a mid-size German town just before the war breaks out. She learns to love her new parents, misses her dead brother, makes friends and steals books. The war starts, her father goes off to the Army, he comes back, they shelter a Jew in the basement and she steals books.
This is a remarkable novel, really practically indescribable. Can't even begin to say how remarkable it is -- lyrical and plain, magical and down-to-earth. 

Killshot

by Elmer Leonard

I stumbled across this in the audio book lists quite by accident; I'm not even sure why I downloaded it -- it isn't my typical kind of book. I think it's a series, or at least a 'genre' type of book.
The main characters are a crazy combination, two a middle-class couple who are ordinary, yet exceptional, and the other two a Native American hit man and a psycho killer ex-con.
I know, right ? Sounds so predictable but the characters are so finely drawn you get sucked into the story -- which by itself isn't that unique. But the characters make it all worthwhile.
May have to find something else by this author.