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Recent Reviews:
The Year of Reading Dangerously by Andy Miller (received through Edelweiss)
4.5 stars
As an exuberant fan of books about books, I have learned that they sometimes fall short of my expectations for them. This one definitely did not. Author Andy Miller was having a sort of mid-life, existential crises and like many bibliophiles, turned to books to see his way out. He set a "List of Betterment" that included fifty books that he always pretended to have read. The books include classics such as Middlemarch and Moby Dick and more obscure works (in the U.S. at least) like Absolute Beginners. Some of these books I would never pick up but I enjoyed reading about his enthusiasm for them and how the whole experience slowly started to change his life. I especially loved his chapter about War and Peace and how once his wife read it, she never read the same way again. He perfectly captures the power of great books and the possibility of connecting to books in very personal ways. There were some anecdotes included in this book that I didn't think were necessarily interesting or needed, however I highly recommend this to fellow readers. I received this book from Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review.
Only Enchanting by Mary Balogh (received through Goodreads First Reads)
3 stars
This novel is the next in the Survivor's' Club series, about a group of mostly men gravely injured in war. This time following Flavian, Viscount Posonby, who suffered an almost fatal shot to the head that took several years to recover. In the process, his fiancé left him for his best friend. He struggles to remember some of the past and can't always figure out the correct order of events. Enter Agnes Keeping, a widow living a quiet life in a cottage with her sister, who unsuccessfully attempts to avoid falling in love with the rakish Viscount. What I love best about Balogh's books are the level-headedness of her heroines. There are no unnecessary hysterics or frustrating plot devices used to cause conflicts between the love interests. I did find this book incredibly slow and the dialogue strangely circular. I felt like the same conversation kept taking place between Flavian and Agnes. That said, I liked the two characters and enjoyed reading about their relationship. I received this book from the Goodreads First-reads Program.
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