Dec 18
To Kill A Mockingjay by Harper Collins This book is about the daughter of a lawyer living in District 12 who is chosen to take part in “the Hunger Play” in which children dress up like items of food. The daughter, Scatniss Finch is forced to dress up like a ham for the play, along with other …
Dec 16
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory by Caitlin Doughty I really enjoyed this. How can you not like a poignant memoir that makes you laugh with lines like “A girl never forgets the first corpse she shaves.” I got the audiobook, read by the author, who has a raspy, cheerful …
Dec 11
Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman by Robert K. Massie I usually don’t read biography, but two disparate people recommended this to me in the space of two weeks, so I decided to make an exception. As you might expect, this book is about Catherine II of Russia, one of the most powerful and …
Nov 25
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro This was an extremely depressing but brilliantly performed audiobook that I could not listen to without thinking of Downton Abbey. It alternates between Stephens, the long-time butler of Darlington Hall taking a road trip through England and Stephens thinking about his past and about Miss Kenton, a …
Nov 18
For All the Tea in China: How England Stole the World’s Favorite Drink and Changed History by Sarah Rose This isn’t quite a book like SALT or THE PERFECT RED that covers every possible aspect of a world-changing commodity. It’s kind of pick and choose about what aspects of the tea trade it covers closely …
