Interresting

The Hunger was a really interesting horror novel.  An historical one!  I don't read too-too much horror, so I can't make a good comparison, but as far as scare factor, it wasn't very high.  It's based on the historical Donner Party.  There were a lot of characters, and I really liked some and really didn't like others and I did get a little confused but not enough to take away my enjoyment of the book and I kept wanting to read more. 

Suspenseful!

Hissing Cousins:  The Untold Story of Eleanor Roosevelt and Alice Roosevelt Longworth had me guessing until the end.  Would Eleanor's husband cheat on her?  Would Eleanor's husband get elected president?  This kept me listening in the parking lot!

Okay so the book isn't suspenseful.  But it is great!  Really great!  Who knew all of this stuff!

I didn't even know about anything about Alice Roosevelt Longworth.  But then I read about her on wikipedia and I loved this story about her driver!  

Eleanor Roosevelt is someone to whom I never paid enough attention, and I am sorry for that.  Because she sounds like a really, really neat lady.

Great, great book.  I learned so much!   We are going to read it in my adult nonfiction book group for July!

"I was listening to NPR..."

When I hear someone say that I know I am outta my league.  But the thing is...some of the shows that folks say they heard on NPR, really aren't on NPR!  For example, On Being- that's American Public Media, right? So is Prairie Home Companion.  And Freakonomics Radio is WNYC.  And Fresh Air is on WBEZ.  But I digress. Shocking.  Regardless, most people who listen to NPR or WNYC or APM or PRX are smart people. Intellectual people.  And I am none of those things.  Regardless, I DID find Ghostland:  An American History in Haunted Places on NPR's website!  While Stoned explained some great history through the use of stories about famous jewels and the like, and Far and Away looked at some massively important historical events through the travels of Andrew Solomon, Ghostland looks at historical times through tales of haunted places and ghosts.

I found this book to be awesome.  Having a great love of ghost stories and haunted places and a strong like for history and an even stronger like of American history in particular, this was a fascinating way to look at some of the most horrible events and institutions country's past.   I love the way this guy thinks.  Excellent book.  

Harder than Hard

to read The Port Chicago  50 and learn of the horrible treatment of African American sailors.  Harder still to admit that I had not heard about this until I read Steve Sheinkin's book.  This is again one of those things that I pray and hope is different now among kids who are learning American history.  Here is more about the Port Chicago Disaster.  An excellent book.

The Wordy Hipster

Sarah Vowell is older than I am.  Not by much, but since she is older than I am, and I am no spring chicken, I am confused as to why Ms. Vowell acts like she is still young enough to be a hipster. Very sad.
There were some interesting parts to this book, but it was sort of weird.  I just wasn't sure what it was trying to accomplish. I'm an average person.  Not too smart.  Not too intellectually challenged.  I went to decent schools, but no place to write home about, you know?  Most of the information in this book wasn't anything new to me, so I can't imagine this was a history book.
You know, I really don't know what else to say about this.   The Wordy Shipmates was way too wordy.