1990, 84 pp. Rating:

In this short memoir chronicling the author’s own bout with depression, Styron gives us a glimpse of the pain and madness of the disease.  Styron not only provides us with details of his own illness, but also expounds on the suicides and/or depression of other authors.  He also gives [...]]]> Darkness Visible
by William Styron

1990, 84 pp.
Rating:

In this short memoir chronicling the author’s own bout with depression, Styron gives us a glimpse of the pain and madness of the disease.  Styron not only provides us with details of his own illness, but also expounds on the suicides and/or depression of other authors.  He also gives guidelines and suggestions for action to those who have a loved one suffering with the disease.

Styron was the author of Sophie’s Choice and the Pulitzer Prize winning The Confessions of Nat Turner. He died in 2006 at the age of 81 from pneumonia.

I usually have to be forced to read non-fiction these days, so this challenge will be good for me. [...]]]> Thanks, Joy, for hosting this again! Last year after the challenge, I won The Only Road North from Joy, and I just finished it last month. Thanks for that, too; it was an excellent book!

I usually have to be forced to read non-fiction these days, so this challenge will be good for me. I’ll pick 5 from the following, making sure I have at least one that’s not a memoir:

1. Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi (graphic novel memoir)
2. Persepolis 2 by Marjane Satrapi (graphic novel memoir)
3. Blankets by Craig Thompson (graphic novel memoir)
4. The Borden Tragedy by Rick Geary (graphic novel true crime)
5. Darkness Visible by William Styron (memoir)

• X Stands for Unknown by Isaac Asimov
• Reading Lolita in Tehran
• With Borges by Alberto Manuel
• Darkness Visible by William Styron
• The Sum of Our Days by Isabel Allende
• A Girl Named Zippy by Haven Kimmel

It is almost always easier to learn about history through historical fiction or current world events through memoirs, and this book is no exception. Daoud Hari gives us a harrowing account of his experiences translating for various media outlets in the Darfur region. The violence in Darfur, especially toward women [...]]]>

Click for Amazon info

It is almost always easier to learn about history through historical fiction or current world events through memoirs, and this book is no exception. Daoud Hari gives us a harrowing account of his experiences translating for various media outlets in the Darfur region. The violence in Darfur, especially toward women and children, is unspeakable. Though not overly graphic, it is still difficult to read in spots.

Similar to the plight of the Kurds, the people of Darfur have had their lives shattered due to boundaries set by people not of their region. This brief, engaging book will not only enlighten you to the situation in Darfur, but will also make you question the wisdom of meddling in other countries’ affairs at all.

2008, 189 pp.
Rating: 4

a) What issues/topic interests you most–non-fiction, i.e, cooking, knitting, stitching, there are infinite topics that has nothing to do with novels? Christianity, history, computer programming, and science.

b) Would you like to review books concerning those? Not really, though I did review a [...]]]> Both Melody from Melody’s Reading Corner and Bellezza from Dolce Bellezza tagged me for this meme.

a) What issues/topic interests you most–non-fiction, i.e, cooking, knitting, stitching, there are infinite topics that has nothing to do with novels?
Christianity, history, computer programming, and science.

b) Would you like to review books concerning those?
Not really, though I did review a few last year. I much prefer fiction.

c) Would you like to be paid or do it as interest or hobby? Tell reasons for what ever you choose.
I’m not a good enough reviewer to be paid, but no, I wouldn’t be interested at this time of my life anyway. I have too many other commitments.

d) Would you recommend those to your friends and how?
Yes, with caution. Only if I know someone is interested in those topics.

e) If you have already done something like this, link it to your post.
My best non-fiction titles from last year were the following:

1. Wild Swans ****1/2 by Jung Chang (2007 #1 Best Non-Fiction)
2. The Bookseller of Kabul **** by Seierstad (2007 #2 Best Non-Fiction)

f) Please don’t forget to link to whoever tags you.
I linked to the two people who tagged me above.

If you haven’t done this meme yet and want to, consider yourself tagged!

1. Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert (also for the NYT Notable Book Challenge) 2. The Bookseller of Kabul by Seierstad (also for Reading Across Borders Challenge) 3. Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller 4. The Top Ten: Writers Pick Their Favorite Books – [...]]]>
Completed!! (I’ll have reviews of the last two titles up in a couple of days!)

1. Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert (also for the NYT Notable Book Challenge)
2. The Bookseller of Kabul by Seierstad (also for Reading Across Borders Challenge)
3. Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller
4. The Top Ten: Writers Pick Their Favorite Books – Zane
5. The Travels of Marco Polo – Marco Polo

Bonus:
Wild Swans by Jung Chang

2007, 323 pp. Rating: 3.5

This book has top ten book lists for 125 writers. Zane then scored these selections with a #1 pick getting 10 points and a #10 pick getting 1 point to come up with an overall list. The top ten works are [...]]]> The Top Ten: Writers Pick Their Favorite Books
by J. Peder Zane

2007, 323 pp.
Rating: 3.5

This book has top ten book lists for 125 writers. Zane then scored these selections with a #1 pick getting 10 points and a #10 pick getting 1 point to come up with an overall list. The top ten works are the following:

1. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (1877)
2. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert (1857)
3. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy (1869)
4. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov (1955)
5. Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (1884)
6. Hamlet by William Shakespeare (1600)
7. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1925)
8. In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust (1913-1927)
9. The stories of Anton Chekhov (1860-1904)
10. Middlemarch by George Eliot (1871-1872)

I find it interesting that the breakdown according to nationality was 40% Russian, 20% British, 20% American, and 20% French. I LOVE Russian lit-especially Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. I have read the titles in bold and would like to read the other books on the list in the following order: Middlemarch, War and Peace, The Stories of Anton Chekov, Lolita, and then In Search of Lost Time. I want to read Middlemarch in 2008 and perhaps War and Peace as well.

There were various other top ten lists in the back with the following as the #1 pick for each:

#1 work of the 20th century: Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
#1 work of the 19th century: Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
#1 work of the 18th centure: Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne
#1 work of the 16th and 17th centuries: Hamlet by William Shakespeare
#1 work of the 15th century and earlier: The Odyssey by Homer
#1 author by number of works selected: William Shakespeare
#1 author by points earned: Leo Tolstoy
#1 work by an American author: Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
#1 work by a British author: Hamlet by William Shakespeare
#1 work by a Russian author: Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
#1 work by a French author: Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
#1 work by a living author: One Hundred Years of Solitude by Marquez
#1 comic work: Don Quixote by Cervantes
#1 work of fantasy/science fiction: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Carroll
#1 mystery/thriller: The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler

He also lists all 544 books mentioned by the writers in point order with a summary for each. I did glean some titles for my TBR pile that I’ll list here:

The Golden Argosy edited by Van H. Carmell
The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann
Mrs. Bridge/Mr. Bridge by Evan S. Connell
Stones for Ibarra by Harriet Doerr
The Transit of Venus by Shirley Hazzard
The Diary of a Country Priest by Georges Bernanos
Wheat That Springeth Green by J. F. Powers
The Gate of Angels by Penelope Fitzgerald
The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles
The Ponder Heart by Eudora Welty
The Betrothed by Alessandro Manzoni
Silence by Shusaku Endo
The River of Earth by James Still
The Beginning of Spring by Penelope Fitzgerald
The Old Wives’ Tale by Arnold Bennett

I like lists of books so you may be wondering why only a 3.5 rating. I just really liked The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop and The King’s English so much better. Also, out of the 125 authors that participated, I had only heard of 55 of them. As I read through the selections, I found that other than the obvious classics I haven’t read and the above titles, I just wasn’t interested in many of them. Doom and gloom and s*x and violence. I don’t have to have a happy ending to enjoy a book, but I do want to feel something other than utter hopelessness.

1992, 508 pp.

Rating: 4.5

1994 British Book of the Year

This is a long, fascinating book that I’m really glad I finished. I got this after reading Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, which I absolutely loved. I didn’t know it was non-fiction until it came in the mail. I [...]]]> Wild Swans:
Three Daughters of China
by Jung Chang

1992, 508 pp.

Rating: 4.5

1994 British Book of the Year

This is a long, fascinating book that I’m really glad I finished. I got this after reading Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, which I absolutely loved. I didn’t know it was non-fiction until it came in the mail. I saw that it was a banned book, so I used it for the Banned Book Challenge as well as the Chunkster Challenge.

The book tells the life stories of Jung and her mother and grandmother. Along the way I learned quite a bit about China under Mao as well. I love history when it is presented this way. I’ve always felt that history was more about how people’s lives were affected by their rulers than just names, dates, and events that occurred.

The book is told chronologically. The first story is about how Jung’s grandmother had no choice in being a concubine to a Chinese general. The “marriage” was arranged so that her grandmother’s father would have more privileges of his own. Jung’s mother was born from this union.

Next, we learn of her mother’s life growing up under Japanese occupation in Manchuria, and then after the Japanese surrender, the fight between the Kuomintang and the Communists for power in China. Jung’s parents become Communist officials who very much believe in the Communist ideals. Their “faith” is eventually shattered by Mao’s thirst for power and his “Cultural Revolution.”

Although her parents were still receiving their salaries from the government, they were also being detained or being made to go to denunciation meetings where they were yelled at and/or beaten. The Red Guard and the Rebels were encouraged to rise up against the old Communist officials and take control. Even young children were encouraged to beat up their teachers. School days consisted of reading Mao’s works, punishing anyone who was a “class enemy”, and tearing up the grass and flowers in the courtyards as they were too “decadent.”

As Jung grows up, she is at first enamored with Mao, but is eventually disillusioned with what has happened to her family and to herself. She is a bright young woman who is required several times to be “reeducated” by the peasants or factory workers. After Mao dies, eventually China changes for the better. She is able to go to the West and study, but she never permanently returns to China.

I highly recommend this book if you are interested in history in general or Chinese culture. It is also a “wake-up” call to us softies in the West. Books like these really make me appreciate American freedom!

1. Wendy – July 3, 2007

I have this one on my wish list, Michelle. Thanks for another great review!!!

2. raidergirl3 – July 3, 2007

I have this on my list for the nonfiction challenge, but it looks so huge! It sounds good though; thanks for the review.

3. Nyssaneala – July 3, 2007

Wild Swans is a great book! You might also like The Sacred Willow by Duong van mai elliott. It’s about 4 generations of her vietnamese family, starting in the late nineteenth century, and continues up until the 1990’s. It is also non-fiction, but told in a narrative style, with a lot of it reading like a novel.

1977, 238 pp.

Rating: 4

National Book Award Winner

This memoir is a book about life, marriage, friendship, and faith. Vanauken tells the story of how he and his wife’s relationship changed from an intense, romantic love to one controlled by their Christian beliefs. That is not to say that their love wasn’t [...]]]> A Severe Mercy
by Sheldon Vanauken

1977, 238 pp.

Rating: 4

National Book Award Winner

This memoir is a book about life, marriage, friendship, and faith. Vanauken tells the story of how he and his wife’s relationship changed from an intense, romantic love to one controlled by their Christian beliefs. That is not to say that their love wasn’t intense or romantic after their conversion, but it did change significantly. He also details his wife’s illness, death, and his own grief process afterwards.

Most interesting to me were the letters exchanged between the Vanaukens (mostly Sheldon) and C.S. Lewis. The couple met Lewis while at Oxford and kept up a healthy correspondence with him after they moved back to the States. Lewis is my favorite author, so it was interesting to hear his viewpoints on a much more personal level. These exchanges were my favorite parts of the book.

Amy – June 18, 2007

I read this book and really enjoyed it too and agree that the exchanges with Lewis were my favorite part of the book.

I have so many Lewis books that I want to read(and in fact, own) but I never get them read. I need to link them to a challenge and then I will complete them.

Maybe in 2008.

2006, 352 pp.

Rating: 3.5 (Edit: I changed it from a 4)

Caveat! I didn’t like the book much. I’m giving it a ’4′ because of the brilliant writing.

Subtitled One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia, Elizabeth Gilbert’s book about “finding herself” after a divorce is, well, [...]]]> Eat, Pray, Love
by Elizabeth Gilbert

2006, 352 pp.

Rating: 3.5 (Edit: I changed it from a 4)

Caveat! I didn’t like the book much. I’m giving it a ’4′ because of the brilliant writing.

Subtitled One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia, Elizabeth Gilbert’s book about “finding herself” after a divorce is, well, interesting to say the least. She is frank, candid, brutally honest, and bares all in this travel memoir. I do give her this: she is a brilliant writer and narrator (I listened to the audio CD). The problem was, though, that after finishing the book, I found I really didn’t like it much. It is an easy read/listen, with a little ‘too much information’ sometimes, if you know what I mean. I also didn’t agree with almost any of her decisions or with her conclusions about God and spirituality, though I’m sure she’s not asking me to, either! Still, I rated it a ’4′ because I want to recognize her writing talents.

She goes through a messy divorce and travels through the three “I” countries listed above. She learns Italian and eats a lot of pasta in Italy (the Eat in the title), she “finds God” in India (the Pray), and she finds love (the Love in the title) in Indonesia. She makes it all very interesting, that’s for sure. I do recommend this book because it is always fascinating to take a peak at other women’s lives and their viewpoints, and as I said, the writing is excellent. In some ways, though, books like these always reinforce my own beliefs and viewspoints as well.

Lisa – May 5, 2007

I am sad that you didn’t like this! I loved it so much. It was so easy to read and just flowed for me. I am dying to go to Italy, so that may be part of my love.

Bybee – May 30, 2007

I’m going to try this book because I really enjoyed her first one, The Last American Man.

2005, 262 pp.

Rating: 3.5

2006, 216 pp.

Rating: 4