Thursday, March 31, 2016

Recently Read

Yep, here we go again.  Skip it if you wanna.


1.  If Wishes Were Horses:  The Education of a Veterinarian by Loretta Gage, DVM and Nancy Gage - Vet school memoir.  Absorbing.

2.  Two in the Far North by Margaret Murie - BO-RING.  It's a memoir about living in Alaska, which I usually eat up, but according to this book, set in the early to mid 1900s, Alaska was full of civilized people living cushy if simple lives, and it never even got that cold, evidently.  Bah.  On the bright side, evidently Ms. Murie's Alaska experience was COMPLETELY DIFFERENT from that of every other Alaska memoirist I've ever read, so good for her.

3.  Animal Patients by Edward J. Scanlon - Yep, another veterinarian memoir.  Good.

4.  The Animals Come First by Mary Bowring - Just for a change of pace, this was NOT a veterinarian memoir.  It was a veterinarian's WIFE'S memoir.  Ha.  I enjoyed it.  OF COURSE.

5.  The Flying Circus by Susan Crandall - Novel about barnstormers in the 1920s.  A light read, and I didn't get really invested in it until about two-thirds of the way through, but a good book.

6.  Honey in the Horn by H.L Davis.  Novel about homesteading in Oregon in the early 1900s. Did not finish. 

7.  A Girl From Yamhill by Beverly Cleary - Memoir of childhood from the woman who wrote the "Ramona Quimby" series of children's books.  Charming.

8.  Through the Narrow Gate by Karen Armstrong.  Memoir of the experiences of a woman who became a nun at 17 in the mid-sixties.  Interesting and well written, and did not disavow me of the opinion that organized religion is whacked.

9.  Whistling Past the Graveyard by Susan Crandall -  I thought The Flying Circus was enjoyable, so I checked out this one.  Didn't like and didn't finish.

That's it!  Anybody reading anything good?



5 comments:

James P. said...

Karen Armstrong is an international expert on religious matters, and we frequently see her on TV, usually BBC, talking about Islamic affairs. Anyway, she's not just the average memoirist.

rockygrace said...

Ginny, wow! I knew she had written several books, but I didn't know she was, like, a rock star, religion-information-wise. Interesting!

~~Silk said...

I've been reading Bill Bryson's books. Just finished "A walk in the Woods" (Appalachian Trail), and have started "In a Sunburned Country" (Australia). I enjoy his style. He's often described as funny, but I find him more wry. I had earlier read about his walks in England (good) and his return to the US (eh...).

rockygrace said...

~~Silk, I read A Walk in the Woods and really enjoyed it, but the rest of his stuff, not so much. He seemed to really feel superior toward a lot of the people he was describing, like they were all a bunch of dumb rubes, and that just kind of rubbed me the wrong way. But I know a lot of people love his stuff, so maybe it's just me.

~~Silk said...

Re your comment on Bryson - perhaps that's why some people find him funny, but I just find him wry, not funny at all. I'm going to watch for your observation as I travel through Australia with him. That may well be why I don't find him funny.