Nook books

I have continued to read a bunch of books on my Nook. All ratings out of a possible 5 stars.

Wicked by Gregory
4 stars
I thought that the book was a good re-telling of the Wonderful World of Oz, but from the Wicked Witch of the West’s perspective. The story did get bogged down at times and I wonder if the author just wanted to beef up the book. It has been a few years since I saw Wicked, but I thought that play was AMAZING (and I generally don’t like plays). Still, the book kept me interested and I give it 4 stars just because it was the basis of the play.

Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand
5 stars
This book was absolutely an amazing story and I can’t believe that it is all true!! Louis Zamperini is a childhood misfit who ends up at the Berlin Olympics before becoming an airman. When his flight is shot down his amazing tale of survival, POW camps, and resilience is awe-inspiring. Wow, just wow. Everyone should read this.

Auschwitz: A Doctor’s Eyewitness Account by Miklos Nyiszli
4 stars
I’ll admit, I don’t know a lot about the Nazi death camps. I’ve never seen Schindler’s List and haven’t read too many accounts. But when this book came up as a free book for my Nook I knew that I shouldn’t pass it up. The author is Dr. Miklos Nyiszli, a Jewish man who was spared death so that he could perform “scientific research” on his fellow inmates under Dr. Josef Mengele. His horrifying account of his time at Auschwitz was a surprisingly fast read, but made my stomach turn constantly.

Blood Safari by Deon Meyer
5 stars
I partly loved this book because it was set in South Africa and I could use our honeymoon trip to understand the cultural references and some of the locations. But this was a good thriller even without the beautiful setting. The book is about Lemmer, a private bodyguard who is hired to help Emma hunt down her long-lost brother and a network of eco-terrorists.

Storm Front (The Dresden Files, #1) by Jim Butcher
3 stars
CP laughed at me when I told him that I had picked up this book based on a Goodreads recommendation from a friend. The main character is Harry Dresden, wizard for hire, who is called in to consult on a grisly double murder committed with the blackest of magic. I struggled through the book as it is just not my type of genre. I have heard that the series gets better after the first few books, but I wasn’t a huge fan of Butcher’s writing style so I don’t think that I will be reading any more of his titles.

IQ84 by Haruki Murakami
4 stars
It’s hard to boil this 925 page book down to a sentence or two. The gist of this amazing book is that two Tokyo citizens get wrapped up in a parallel world (1Q84) instead of the “normal” 1984. There is a mysterious religious cult, a wealthy old woman who runs a shelter for abused women, and a host of other odd characters. The book is beautifully written and I definitely want to check out other books by this author.

11/22/63 by Stephen King
5 stars
It has been a while since I have read a Stephen King book. I used to LOVE and DEVOUR books like The Stand, It, etc. I didn’t mind that they were almost 1000 pages. I had heard great things about this book and thought that I might try reading Mr. King again. Boy was this book worth it. This book is about Jake Epping an English teacher in ME who gets the chance to try to go back in time to prevent the Kennedy assassination. I didn’t want to put it down and when I finished it, I was sad that it had ended. I’m back on the King train again!

Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity by Katherine Boo
4 stars
This book is about a few people who live in Annawadi, a slum in the shadow of luxury hotels near the Mumbai airport. The author spent three years talking to her subjects before writing this book. I originally picked it up because a reviewer in Entertainment Weekly said that this book was making all of the other books on their shelf look stupid. This was a fantastically sad book and it’s extremely sad how much poverty and corruption there is in this world.


Have you read anything good recently?