Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz

Both Karen and Lidvin Kjerengtroen highly recommended this book to me. They said it was really good, and they thought I would enjoy not only this book, but the whole series. So I ordered it used on Amazon and began my reading.

It was very enjoyable! I really was captivated from the first page and enjoyed Koontz's humor and very descriptive and often humorous analogies. His characters are refreshing and interesting. It had all the elements of a great read! But the dark characters, who turned out to be Satan-worshippers were too evil, and their practices and crimes were detailed too graphically for me to enjoy. I read at the end of the day, just before falling asleep, and this was too dark, suspenseful, and evil to invite me to sleep peacefully after reading. It's too bad, really, because the humor is so fresh, the characters (the good ones) are so interesting, but the evil is too strong here and described in too much detail.

Much of the plot unfolded in unpredictable ways, and I really enjoyed the suspense of where this story was going. There was also a lot of interesting philosophy about the afterlife and spirits that was creative and positive and fun. Like the Spirit of Elvis, crying on his mama's birthday--cute things like that.

Dang, I really wanted to love this book and this series. But this will be my last Odd book, despite how much I enjoyed parts of it. I don't need that much violence and ugliness in my life!!!

Outliers - The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell

I often hear this book quoted and/or referred to. It was first published in 2008. I thought I had read it, but when I found it in a free little library box in Bismarck, I plucked it out and took it home. After a search on this blog, I realized that if I had indeed read it, I hadn't reviewed it. So I began reading it and was hooked from the first page onwards.

It is engagingly built on stories to masterfully illustrate Gladwell's theories of success. So much of who we are and how we operate in the world comes from our inherited culture. This book is also the oft-referred to source of the 10,000 hours rule. The rule is, to become an expert, one needs 10,000 hours of meaningful PRACTICE. There is so much good thinking in this book, I am planning to read it and study it. I want to share it with Leonard and see if we can apply some of these ideas to our lives.

The chapter on rice paddies and math tests really challenged my assumptions. Actually, the ideas in this book shifted many of my paradigms...So grateful I picked it up! I will return to this summary and expand on it soon. I promise.

Thrice the Brinded Cat Hath Mew'd by Alan Bradley

The eighth in the series about Flavia deLuce, this book delighted me. While the murder was macabre and messy, the story was delightful. I liked it much better than #7, which was set in Canada in a boarding school. I enjoy Flavia much more in her English environment with her local characters. It was the perfect book to chuckle over and enjoy while acclimating to the cold climate and new surroundings of our new home in Bismarck. At Christmastime with no family around, it cheered me up, and gave me many a light chuckle.

The Explosive Child by Ross W. Greene, Ph.D.

I read a summary of the ideas in this book online and was intrigued. Greene seemed to have a lot of experience and a very compassionate attitude toward troubled children. So, I thought I'd take a deeper look and ordered a copy.

It basically is a book with lots of ideas and sample dialogues about how to interact with troubling children. The author encourages parents to make an inventory of the behaviors and "lagging skills" so that they can develop an approach of "problems to be solved."

I like the approach. I like the idea that kids are troubling when they have skills that are lacking and I love the idea of purposefully teaching these skills. Then, the thinking goes, they will have the needed skills to solve problems. And lead a less tumultuous life.

The best argument for this approach is that typical approaches like repeated time-outs or uncomfortable consequences do NOT work with explosive children. They make the problems WORSE and make family life impossible and painful.

I was amazed that in their parenting, Mike and Sierra already use many of these problem-solving techniques very effectively and intuitively with their children. They explain consequences and invite mutual problem-solving. I'm going to give them the book anyway, because it may give them a few additional ideas or tweaks. Gratefully, NONE of their children is an explosive child as described in this book...the children in the examples sound like unholy terrors. But still, all children can have temper tantrums, and it might be useful to consider some "lagging skills" as a root cause.

Christie Classics by Agatha Christie

I have always loved mysteries and began reading Agatha Christie while I was still in high school. Our Rapid City book club was going to read The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, so I jumped on board. The cheapest version I could find online was a compilation of Christie classics. So I began with the Roger Ackroyd story, which was very enjoyable, though dark and hard for me to follow. The book club discussion made me appreciate it more, however, and I decided to read the others in the book.

And Then There Were None
The Witness for the Prosecution
Philomel Cottage
Three Blind Mice

were the other classics included in this compilation. They were all enjoyable, and so well-written! It's a pleasure to read such wonderful prose and to be charmed and horrified by the characters. I may just keep this around to enjoy again another time...

Red Notice by Bill Browder

My sister Jane recommended this book to me, probably because she's interested in finance. It was hard for me to grasp the financial ideas, but the suspense and the corruption of the Russians was clear to me... An interesting book, a depressing book, one that held my interest, but not one I would read again...

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

When I was in Napa for the 60th anniversary of Kublers on the ranch, I got ample time to talk books with both Jane and Ann. It's always interesting to hear their take on things, and often their taste in books is different from each other. But they both recommended this book to me; they agreed it was well worth reading. And so I ordered it and just got to it this past week.

It was a little confusing to me at first; the plot unfolds from different points in the past. You, as the reader, ask yourself why things got to this point before you read the why. It's an effective foreshadowing technique, but it took me awhile to catch on to it. The switch, by chapter, of telling the story was easier to follow. Both the young German boy and the young French girl had fascinating lives that were beautifully revealed through metaphor, example, and conversations. The writing of this author is not exactly what I would call poetic; I would call it arresting and beautiful. Filled with light...that metaphor plays out consistently and with a great deal of variety.

I love interesting characters and this story delivers them in multitudes. It also re-illuminated for me why the French cannot tolerate the Germans, even to this day. One time I was speaking German to my French friend in Paris, and the people in the cafe became incensed. Of course this was the 1970's; perhaps it's different now? But this story helped me remember the deep resentment the French harbor against the Germans, and what caused it.

I also enjoyed the way Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea was a recurring theme in the story, and snippets were quoted in the book. Of course I always enjoy French and German language phrases, and these were easily understandable I admired the way the author portrayed the young German fighting his conscience and how he emerged courageously at the end. The bravery of the French girl and her resourcefulness were also so admirable. I loved her great uncle Etienne, and his struggle with extreme anxiety and agoraphobia. I loved so much about this story...even though it was set in a harsh time with very tough challenges...I'm not sure I would want to take it on again...all of the pain and the suspense and the hunger are not peace-inducing to someone like me who likes to read before sleeping! Yet this story was compelling, beautiful, and worth the struggle to read, despite the hardships so vividly described.