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September books (and movies and recipes)
Oct. 11th, 2018 06:39 pmI went to an Oktoberfest party a couple weeks ago (it is that time of year), and to go along with the theme, I baked a German Apple Cake to bring. (I told my mom I made it and she responded, "What makes it German? My recipe is a Jewish apple cake, I bet mine's better." Well, the Germans add cream cheese frosting, so...) I cannot vouch for its authentic Germanness, but I can certainly vouch for its deliciousness. I followed the advice of the commenters and didn't bake it for the full 55-60 minutes. I was a little concerned about whether it'd be not totally baked in the middle, but it was more like slightly underdone brownies than raw dough.
And now, books!
Forever Free, Jim Halderman: Okay, so this is clearly a series with diminishing returns. I mostly liked the first book, was rather ambivalent about the second (which was not actually a sequel of any kind), and now the third, which IS actually a sequel to the first book... I just... don't even know where to start. It starts off pretty slow, catching up with the characters from the first book twenty years later and establishing their life on their new planet (by sapping them of every characteristic that was interesting or unique about them, and these were not terribly fleshed-out characters to begin with). Then it picks up when they decide to go back into space and things start to go wrong, which was a plot I was actually interested in, both for the perils of the space journey and for the potential changes in the far future society once they returned. But then before any of that gets to develop, it just goes completely off the rails and then the book ENDS. It's like the author had no idea where to go with the story so he just threw in a literal deus ex machina or four and said, "Screw it, I'm finished."
To All the Boys I've Loved Before, Jenny Han: This is a DELIGHTFUL YA romance about Lara Jean, a quiet, reserved teenager who writes love letters to boys she likes that she never means for them to read. Except, of course, they do and things get all topsy-turvy for Lara Jean. I actually watched the movie before I read the book, and I think I like the movie better (and if you haven't seen it yet, get thee to Netflix immediately). But the movie has a pretty firm ending, whereas the book has a definite cliffhanger as the beginning of a trilogy, which makes it harder to evaluate. (The movie ALSO has adorable leads - I knew Noah Centineo from The Fosters, but Lana Condor is new to me, and both are great.) But I'm definitely going to keep reading.
The Oz Principle: Getting Results Through Individual and Organizational Accountability, Rogers Connors, Tom Smith, and Craig Hickman: Meh. This one was assigned reading for work. It's got some good (if not revolutionary) points, although the Oz framework is pretty hokey and forced. Mostly, though, it just emphasized how dysfunctional my old workplace was and how glad I am that I'm no longer there!
A Gentleman in Moscow, Amor Towles: Set in the 30 years after the Russian Revolution, this book follows a Russian aristocrat who was stripped of his title and placed on "house arrest" in a Moscow hotel by the new Bolshevik regime. When I was describing the plot to one of my friends, she said, "Like that Tom Hanks movie where he lives in the airport?" And, I mean... kinda? But with a lot of Russian politics and literary references thrown in, lol. It's all about the life he builds within the walls of the hotel and the various staff and hotel guests who become his family. The writing is vividly descriptive, with beautiful imagery and colorful characters, with an unhurried, contemplative pace, which (like all Russian novels) occasionally makes it feel a little too long, but definitely worth a read.
And now, books!
Forever Free, Jim Halderman: Okay, so this is clearly a series with diminishing returns. I mostly liked the first book, was rather ambivalent about the second (which was not actually a sequel of any kind), and now the third, which IS actually a sequel to the first book... I just... don't even know where to start. It starts off pretty slow, catching up with the characters from the first book twenty years later and establishing their life on their new planet (by sapping them of every characteristic that was interesting or unique about them, and these were not terribly fleshed-out characters to begin with). Then it picks up when they decide to go back into space and things start to go wrong, which was a plot I was actually interested in, both for the perils of the space journey and for the potential changes in the far future society once they returned. But then before any of that gets to develop, it just goes completely off the rails and then the book ENDS. It's like the author had no idea where to go with the story so he just threw in a literal deus ex machina or four and said, "Screw it, I'm finished."
To All the Boys I've Loved Before, Jenny Han: This is a DELIGHTFUL YA romance about Lara Jean, a quiet, reserved teenager who writes love letters to boys she likes that she never means for them to read. Except, of course, they do and things get all topsy-turvy for Lara Jean. I actually watched the movie before I read the book, and I think I like the movie better (and if you haven't seen it yet, get thee to Netflix immediately). But the movie has a pretty firm ending, whereas the book has a definite cliffhanger as the beginning of a trilogy, which makes it harder to evaluate. (The movie ALSO has adorable leads - I knew Noah Centineo from The Fosters, but Lana Condor is new to me, and both are great.) But I'm definitely going to keep reading.
The Oz Principle: Getting Results Through Individual and Organizational Accountability, Rogers Connors, Tom Smith, and Craig Hickman: Meh. This one was assigned reading for work. It's got some good (if not revolutionary) points, although the Oz framework is pretty hokey and forced. Mostly, though, it just emphasized how dysfunctional my old workplace was and how glad I am that I'm no longer there!
A Gentleman in Moscow, Amor Towles: Set in the 30 years after the Russian Revolution, this book follows a Russian aristocrat who was stripped of his title and placed on "house arrest" in a Moscow hotel by the new Bolshevik regime. When I was describing the plot to one of my friends, she said, "Like that Tom Hanks movie where he lives in the airport?" And, I mean... kinda? But with a lot of Russian politics and literary references thrown in, lol. It's all about the life he builds within the walls of the hotel and the various staff and hotel guests who become his family. The writing is vividly descriptive, with beautiful imagery and colorful characters, with an unhurried, contemplative pace, which (like all Russian novels) occasionally makes it feel a little too long, but definitely worth a read.
