Jae's Book Club

I did a ton of reading over the holiday because I had a lot of time on my hands and I'm a big nerd. But I did get some good ones in the bunch, both old and new.



The Hero's Walk: Anita Rau Badami

So to satisfy my love for Middle Eastern culture and books in general, I picked up this one by a Canadian author. It's set near the Bay of Bengal and is about a formally wealthy family now struggling to get by and losing their family relationships as well. The father, Sripathi disowns his daughter when she moves to Canada and marries a Canadian. When she and her husband die, leaving behind a little girl, he travels to Canada to get her, needing to forgive his daughter, who is now gone. It really is a touching book, and very rich in its descriptions. I love reading about other cultures, and this was a fave.



Special Topics in Calamity Physics: Marisha Pessl

Oh, this is one of my favorite books of the last couple years. It's cheeky and smart and just...awesome. I've read this book about a bajillion times, and I pulled it out to read in the bathtub again over the holidays lol. It was just as good. It's written by a literary genius, in the form of an essay. It's kind of a guilty pleasure without dumbing itself down, if that makes sense. It's about a girl and her father, and her senior year of school. She's befriended by an eccentric teacher and a group of rich students called the Blue Bloods. Sounds totally juvenile right? Just read it, it's awesome.



Ford County: John Grisham

I read everything by John Grisham just because I get a hit with him every so often. Some I hate, (The Street Lawyer was pretty awful) but Ford County really was good. It's a grouping of short stories in the same setting as A Time to Kill and it was awesome to read little snippets of lives. I totally loved sitting down and finishing a whole story. I could completely see how these were novel ideas in his head that couldn't be made into a full book and totally loved it. I was sad when I finished it.


The Lace Reader: Brunonia Barry

I picked this book up so randomly one day without knowing anything about it, and I was glad I did. If you're into folksy, witchy, Salem-y type thing, it's for you. It's about a line of women who tell people's futures by looking at them through a piece of lace. Because of this, they have a huge stigma placed around them that causes legends and stories to be told about their family history. The ending was totally surprising and interesting and it was a good overall read. It did take me like 30 pages to get into it, so it starts slow and then you get into it.


The Shack: William P. Young

Okay, so I'd heard tons about this book, that it was life changing and inspiring and blah blah whatever, so I got it out of pure morbid curiosity. It was an interesting read. It is supposedly a true story, about a man whose daughter is kidnapped and presumed dead. After the kidnapping, he becomes angry and hardened and receives a letter, allegedly from God himself, inviting him back to the place where they found the last evidence of his daughter. He goes, and there he spends a weekend with the trinity, learning about their mission and essentially, why bad things happen to good people. The concepts were interesting, but I'm sad to report, not life changing. It was worth reading, if not just to figure out why I'd heard so much about it.

K, I am on the hunt for more good books now. I've got one on my "menu" so to speak, but I need more! Anyone have suggestions?