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Animal, Vegetable, Miracle – Barbara Kingsolver

Barbara Kingsolver is one of my favorite fiction authors. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life is a work of non-fiction. It tells the story of an experimental year as Kingsolver and her family became locavores. They grew and harvested most of their own food, and bought local organic food for the majority of the rest. It’s not fiction, but it almost reads like a novel. I became very interested in the happenings around the farm, wondering about the crops, how their youngest daughters egg business would do, and anxious to see if the turkeys would hatch their eggs. … Continue reading →

The Poisonwood Bible – Barbara Kingsolver

I’ve seen this book reviewed in scads of places and heard people talking about it, so I wanted to read it for myself and see if it measured up (in my estimation) to all the press it’s been getting. The book takes place in the 1960s. Nathan Price is a preacher who feels called to go to the Belgian Congo to teach Christianity to the natives. He takes along his wife, Orleanna, and their four daughters: Rachel, Leah, Adah, and Ruth May. They can only take the barest of necessities, but they hardly know what those necessities might be, having … Continue reading →

100 Greatest Novels

I found a list of the 100 Greatest Novels and just had to share it here. I love to read. My plan is to read as many novels on this list as possible. Care to join me? 1. 1984 by George Orwell 2. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee 3. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger 4. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien 5. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen 6. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald 7. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky 8. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller 9. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov … Continue reading →

Once Upon a Day – Lisa Tucker

The characters in Lisa Tucker’s Once Upon a Day immediately sucked me into their world. This story is told through the point of views of many interesting characters. Stephen was a doctor, and quite happy in his life until his lost his wife and daughter in a car accident. Because he couldn’t save them, he gave up medicine and began driving a cab. Dorothea is a twenty-three year old woman who has never before left home, gone to school, or had a friend. She’s been raised with her brother in The Sanctuary, by her father and grandmother. While she’s had … Continue reading →

Water for Elephants – Sara Gruen

Water for Elephants is one of the best books I’ve read in a long time. I hesitated to read it. Several friends had recommended the book, it’s a New York Times Bestseller, and it was on several great books of the year lists. I thought I’d be disappointed. It couldn’t be that good. But it was. The story is told in alternating chapters by Jacob Jankowski as a ninety or maybe ninety-three year old (he’s lost track) and as a twenty-three year old. The young Jacob is close to graduating veterinary school at Cornell. Even though the country is in … Continue reading →

Tristi’s Picks: Best Novels Read in 2007

It’s that time of year – the time to look back at my reading for the last year and decide which books were the most outstanding. As always, it’s a tough call, more so than usual, as I really found some great reads in 2007. I decided to allow for fifteen top favorites instead of my usual ten – ten is just too limiting. 1. “Wildwood Dancing” by Juliet Marillier was my favorite read over all. This delightful and enchanting fairy tale took the stories of “The Twelve Dancing Princesses” and “The Frog Prince” and blended them together in a … Continue reading →

Week in Review: December 3rd-9th

We had a great week in Media Reviews. In case you missed out on this week’s blogs, here’s a rundown of everything we did. In “By Man Least Understood,” Tristi reviewed an LDS doctrinal book about forgiveness, repentance, and the need we all have for the Atonement of Jesus Christ. She then took a closer look at Barbara Kingsolver’s blockbuster hit, “The Poisonwood Bible,” the story of a preacher who took his wife and daughters to the Belgian Congo and the experiences they had when the Congolese decided to proclaim their independence from Belgium in the 1960s. We reviewed some … Continue reading →