Major Pettigrew's Last Stand - Helen Simonson

Others have described this book as "cute" or "charming" and I can't disagree.  It definitely is those things.  While an enjoyable enough read, I don't think it's something that will stick with me.  It tells the story of the intercultural romance between a retired major and a shopkeeper of Pakistani descent.  It goes through the typical building of the romance (albeit made more interesting with quirky characters), the typical obstacle to true love, and then [spoiler alert] ultimate fruition of the characters' romantic goals.  Reading this book won't change your life, but it isn't a bad way to spend a few evenings.  Simonson draws a compelling portrait of a rural English community, allowing you to enter an alternate reality for a few hours (unless of course you live in rural England).

3/5 Stars

Hearts and Minds - Amanda Craig

I totally loved this book!  I felt that one of its strengths was that it had a little bit of something for everyone.  It had a serious side, looking at issues relating to immigration in London.  There was a mystery that ran through it; and for the softies, it also had a romantic side.  Seriously, this book has something that will appeal to almost everyone.

On a personal note, I think I also related to the book as I'm an immigrant to New Zealand.  While there were the sad cases of the refugees in Hearts and Minds, there were also more typical immigrants as well.  Although I'm Canadian, I could relate to the case of the American living in London.  There's something about trying to find your way in a culture that's similar in many ways, but also very different.  It is really about finding your comfort zone and being true to your identity.  I think back to my years in the Intercultural Communication Lab, and Berry's model of acculturation.  It's about integration--keeping the Canadian part of yourself intact, but incorporating what it means to be a New Zealander (though no, I still don't do rugby).

By all means, grab this book.  As I've said, it's got something for everyone.

5/5 Stars

Never Let Me Go - Does the Movie Stack Up?

Many moons ago I read and really enjoyed Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro.  I remember it as a sombre read, with a twist.  Granted it's been ages since I've read it now, but I think I remember the feeling of reading it enough to make a brief comparison.  The movie holds true to this sombre mood, but is somehow less compelling.  I didn't feel a sense of urgency to understand what was going on (to be fair, this might be because I've read the book).  The other issue that I had related to Ruth's character.  In the movie, she seemed absolutely awful.  I didn't get this sense in the book.  Perhaps her desperation translated better on paper.  At any rate, it wasn't an awful movie--but the book was just so much better.  As is often the case (though not always--Girl with a Dragon Tattoo was a fabulous movie), the book out-classed the movie.

Last Night in Twisted River - John Irving

Much like its title, Irving's book takes you on many twists in turns in the characters' lives before reaching the inevitable climax.  The premise of the novel is interesting--following a father and son on the run from the (corrupt) law after the son accidentally mistook the constable's girlfriend for a bear and killed her.  The book doesn't read like your classic fugitive novel; instead, it gives you a glimpse of this family's lives over the course of around fifty years.  There are times when "the law" closes in, but this isn't the dominant focus of the book.  Instead, it looks at the relationship between father and son; though, this is influenced by their role as fugitives.  Overall, this is a well written and often compelling book.  The main flaw in my mind is the book's length.  It simply seems to go on too long and needed to be more tightly edited.  That said, it's worth picking up and does take you into an interesting world, filled with unique and well described characters.

4/5 Stars

Secrets of Eden - Chris Bohjalian

I usually really enjoy Chris Bohjlian.  Midwives, Law of Similars, etc. were all quite good.  The Secrets of Eden however, did not do it for me at all!  I did finish reading it, but only to confirm that I had correctly guessed the ending.  I had.  This is perhaps one of my larger problems with the book--it was very predictable.  Also, though, there was a new-agey character in it, who was really flaky and whom I could not bear reading about.  In a nutshell, the book was about  a murder-suicide and was told from the perspective of four people: the minister who had been involved with the family, the cop investigate the crime, the new-agey woman, and the daughter of the murder-suicide victims.  The author tries to get you to a different truth with each character and this progresses the book.  This was approach was done much better in Stone's Fall by Iain Pairs.  I suggest picking up that book instead.

2/5 Stars.

The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox - Maggie O'Farrell

The topic of this book is quite compelling.  It explores the case of a woman who was committed to an asylum for almost 60 years--and without the awareness of much of her family.  Using multiple perspectives, O'Farrell leads her readers along a journey to determine whether or not Esme's "sentence" was just.  Her great niece is the character who takes charge of her aunt when the institution is ultimately closing (the only reason Esme really got out) and starts to wonder about why her aunt was committed in the first place.  It's an interesting tale and a quick read.  If you enjoy psychological mysteries, you'll like this one.

4/5 Stars.

Death of Donna Whalen - Michael Winter

I believe that this is one of those books that you can't truly appreciate until you're done.  Or that's how I found it, at any rate.  Winter explores a case in which a woman from St. John's, Newfoundland is brutally murdered.  He used the court transcripts to re-create the events; as a result, there is a fair bit of elaborate detail at points.  This makes it fairly heavy going and I couldn't read too much at once.  That said, it was fascinating to explore the murder from the perspective of all those who were intimately or tangentially involved.  Winter helps you come to a very interesting conclusion in the way he builds it up, but I won't say more than that as I don't want to spoil the book.

While I didn't like this quite as much as Winter's earlier book, The Big Why, it is definitely worth picking up as it's an interesting writing experiment.  And in the end, I think the experiment really worked!

4/5 Stars.

Nonsense on Stilts:How to Tell Science from Bunk

Nonsense on Stilts:How to Tell Science from Bunk

Title: Nonsense on Stilts:How to Tell Science from Bunk
Author: Massimo Pigliucci Page
Publisher: University of Chicago Press

ISBN-10: 0226667863
ISBN-13: 978-0226667867

Review: I had first heard about this book quite a while ago while listening to The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe podcast, but as I am a very slow reader, it took me quite a while to get to it as I had many other books in the queue.  By the time I started reading it, I had already finished quite a few books in the skeptical genre and as such found that I was experiencing a bit of an echo chamber effect.  Much of the early subject matter in the book were issues covered in other books I had read for instance, the Dover Intelligent Design Trial.

Luckily the recycling of topics (at least for me) had ended about 1/3 of the way into the book.  After that, there was a wealth of new information that I had not yet learned about from other skeptical books.  Information such as the decline of the public intellectual and the rise of think tanks, and one of my favorite topics: the evolution of science itself.  Pigliucci managed to educate me on something that has never even entered into my imagination previously, that is how our current view of science has changed and evolved since ancient times.  The last 1/4 of the book was kind of a philosophy vs science smack down that was interesting, but not earth shattering.

All in all a pretty good book, but not a great book.  I give it 4 out of 5.