Posted in 52 Books in 52 Weeks 2009

A few weeks ago, I reached my goal for the year of reading 52 books.  I would have reached it earlier, but this summer I went through a period of being brain dead and really didn't read too much. Or blog, as you may have noticed. After that lull, I have now read ten or so in the last few weeks.  It feels good to be me again!

My last update about the 52 books challenge was July 10, and I had read forty books.  Since then I have read five fiction books: three romances, a Danielle Steel novel, and The Scarlet Letter.  I had to reread The Scarlet Letter after hearing that both my sister and my oldest son hated it, because I remembered liking it.  Well, I still liked it, but I think I can understand why others might not.  It is much more a description of the action.  In other words, instead of feeling like you are there, you feel like somebody who was there is telling you about it.  It's also a rich source of vocabulary words.

For non-fiction, I divided the book into Catholic, History/Current Events, and General Non-Fiction.  The Catholic books were The Rule of Saint Benedict and The Catholic Book of Character and Success by Fr. Edward F. Garesché, a phenomenal book that I plan to work back through and then use in our homeschool.

For History/Current Events, I read:

1. Under Siege: Three children at the Civil War Battle for Vicksburg.  I happened to see this in the children's section at the library.  While I was pregnant with the twins, I did a lot of reading on the Civil War, so I was interested in this.  Two of the children are on the Southern side, and the other child was General Grant's oldest son, who actually was present at the battle and was wounded.
2. After Etan: The Missing Child Case That Held America Captive by Lisa Cohen.  Etan Patz, age 6, disappeared May 25, 1979, while walking the two blocks to the bus stop by himself for the very first time.  His parents did not know he was missing until he did not come home from school.  When you read this book, it's almost unthinkable how cavalier society used to be about children's safety.  Missing pictures on milk cartons, Amber Alerts, beginning the search for a lost child immediately instead of waiting 72 hours, etc - these are all developments that happened after this case.  Today there is a tendency in the other direction, but in my opinion, many of these changes were good.  This book is hard to read, but I don't regret reading it. 
3. Gimme Shelter: Ugly Houses, Cruddy Neighborhoods, Fast-talking Brokers, and Toxic Mortgages: My Three Years Searching for the American Dream by Mary Elizabeth Williams. Why anyone would want to live in New York City escapes me completely, especially after reading this book about a family's three year search for a home to buy.  And then finally, they had the privilege of spending nearly $400,000 on a dinky little two bedroom apartment that wasn't even anywhere near the neighborhood they wanted to live in.  The book is part memoir, part commentary on the housing bubble, part someone trying to explain why she and her husband would choose to live in NYC.  I still don't get it, and I honestly, really, don't need to know when you and your husband "christened" your new apartment.
4. So Damn Much Money: The Triumph of Lobbying and the Corrosion of American Government by Robert G. Kaiser. Normally I would not read a book with profanity in the title, but this I could not resist.  The title comes from a quote in the book.  This book carefully outlines the horrible influence lobbying has on our government.  I truly think the only way out of this mess is to outlaw raising campaign money and give all candidates public money.  The scariest story in the book was when the President of Taiwan indirectly hired American lobbyists to try to get him a visa to enter the country (he attended Cornell as a young man and wanted to give a speech there).  The State Department, for fear of angering China, had refused him a visa.  The lobbying was successful and he got his visa.  Now, on the surface, I'm fine with that.  Why is China deciding who can enter our country?  But when you really think about what just happened, a foreign entity lobbied our government and got what they wanted!  That is really scary!  It's really a toss-up which book made me want to throw up more - this one or the Etan Patz one.

General Non-Fiction

1. Eat to Live by Dr. Joel Fuhrman.  My husband wanted me to read this book.  On the whole, this style of eating makes total sense to me, but it is really expensive.

2. The Creative Habit by Twyla Tharp.  This is a really interesting book if you do anything creative or if you are interested in dance, since she talks a lot about the dances she has choreographed.  She really makes it clear that being creative is a habit and hard work.  There are lots of exercises and ideas to get your creativity flowing! I will definitely be rereading this one.

3. America’s Cheapest Family Gets You Right On the Money by Steve and Annette Economides.  I think I may have read this before, since some of it seemed really familiar, like the pages-long explanation of the minute details of attending the state fair cheaply...zzzz...oh ,wait, did I fall asleep there? Sorry!  You can get the same information that's in this book from The Tightwad Gazette, a lot more enjoyably.  I did like the way they calculated what your emergency fund should be, though, and their suggestions for budgeting for house maintenance.

4. I already ripped apart, uh, reviewed The New Global Student.

5. Gift From the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh.  I guess this is the year I read the books I associate with my mother - Love Story was the first.  My mom had a copy of Gift From the Sea that she really liked.  It's pretty much essays about relationships that she wrote while on a two week beach vacation.  Very thought-provoking reflections on marriage and motherhood.

6. The Not So Big House by Sarah Susanka.  While in general I agree with a lot of the principles in this book, I don't like many of the houses or rooms she shows.  I guess I'm a more traditional architecture sort of person. 

And that's it for now!