Dreaming In Chinese : Mandarin Lessons In Life, Love, And Language
by Deborah Fallows

Being a language nut (I speak French, German, and Spanish and know a smattering of Chinese, Farsi, Hebrew, and Hindi), I thought this book was going to be a delight. It certainly started out that way. Each chapter has linguistic explanations of the Chinese language and at the same time the author interweaves her encounters with everyday life.
Mandarin is one of the most difficult languages to learn due to characters, tones (there are four and don't mix them up), no verbs and no tenses.
Deborah Fallows is a linguist yet in her three years of living in China, she doesn't really master the language and it's understandable. Even the Chinese get rusty about remembering some of the characters.
One of the things she writes about that is irritating is saying how rude and impolite the Chinese are. She generalizes from some of her encounters as if that's the norm. (Having worked with several Chinese, I have found the opposite to be true.)
This book will have limited appeal for most readers. Only students or tourists visiting the country would want to peruse this slim tome.
One more thing. The title isn't valid. Fallows never did say that she dreamt in Chinese. When that happens, you truly have arrived.

A Diamond In The Desert : Behind The Scenes In Abu Dhabi, The World's Richest City
by Jo Tatchell

It used to be an endless desert home to Bedouins. They lived in tents and rode camels.
Abu Dhabi means "Father of the Gazelle" for that is what brought the huntsmen to the area in the first place. Now, the only gazelles that can be found are on mugs and currency.
The author lived as a child in Abu Dhabi in the 1970s. She has wonderful memories of that time. In 2008 she returns and everything that she remembered from her childhood has been obliterated.
There are 420,000 citizens each with a net worth of 17 million dollars. Kind of leaves you gasping. Glitzy condos and skyscrapers abound with luxury hotels. Most of the wealth came from foreigners who were willing to invest. Nobody seems too happy in the world's richest city.
I got to page 153 and for me, the book came to a screeching halt. The particular chapter that ruined it is called The Next Generation and it's about the young people who party, shop, sleep around, etc. It's like reading a trashy gossip column. Ugh. Who cares?
The book was really interesting up until this part. I learned all about the history of the United Arab Emirates, oil, the different tribes, how the island came into existence.
There are no pictures except what is on the front cover (in the background you can see all these high-rises).
There's got to be somebody out there who can write a decent book on Abu Dhabi and just stick with the facts. So far, I haven't found one. (Months ago there was a previous attempt for a book on Abu Dhabi and that one was equally dismal. It's on this blog.)
Not recommended.

Germania : In Wayward Pursuit Of The Germans And Their History
by Simon Winder

Winder is a Brit who has been obsessed with Germany for quite some time. In Germania he attempts to talk about the origins of the Germans and end with Hitler seizing power.
I never got there. Winder really is a terrible writer. The book is so boring and just a big nothing. His previous book The Man Who Saved Britain was equally horrendous.
He works in the publishing world doing God knows what and should just stick with that. NEVER should he write another book.

Cleopatra : A Life
by Stacy Schiff

She was not Egyptian, but Greek; murderers ran in her family; she was fluent in nine languages, took control of a country at the age of eighteen and ruled it for twenty-two years.
Twice, she was married; her spouses were her brothers. (Intermarriage among siblings was very popular with pharoahs.)
Nobody knows what she really looked like. What is considered authentic are her coin portraits.
All of these interesting tidbits about Cleopatra are found in the first chapter. If you can venture beyond it, then you are very brave. (I lasted until page 51.)
This book is dense with detail, very wordy and jumps all over the place. It doesn't belong in a public library. It's very academic and would be perfect for a student who is writing a thesis.
The author is a historian and doesn't know how to present material that is palatable to the layperson. Don't believe any of the reviewers on the back of the book: absorbing, illuminating, a writer of epic skill. Boring, dry, and tedious would be my terminology.
Not recommended.

Travels in Siberia
by Ian Frazier

I didn't get too far with this book. After 20 pages or so, Frazier was asked about the style of his writing and he said that it was factual. He should have also replied that it was dry, cold and not especially funny (several reviewers thought he was hilarious).
Travels in Siberia is quite hefty at 544 pages. Siberia would have been interesting to read about in better hands.
Not recommended.

Bloody Crimes : The Chase For Jefferson Davis And The Death Pageant For Lincoln's Corpse
by James L. Swanson

The subtitle should be reversed because the first half of the book covers the thirteen city funeral procession (by train) for Abraham Lincoln and the latter half is the chase for Jefferson Davis.
I can't believe that I am actually putting this book on this blog. I thought for sure that it would be on my book-a-holics blog. After all, I slogged through 403 pages. But, Bloody Crimes is NOTHING like Swanson's previous book Manhunt (the hunt, chase and capture of John Wilkes Booth).
There were some interesting tidbits about Lincoln and Davis, but most of the book was plodding, repetitious and dry.
Very disappointing.

Simon Wiesenthal : The Life And Legends
by Tom Segev

After being in several concentration camps during WWII and surviving them, Simon Wiesenthal became known as the "Nazi hunter" and tracked down numerous criminals. His most famous catch was Eichmann who was found in Argentina.
Wiesenthal, though, was very controversial. He had a habit of embellishing his stories and/or making them up. Apparently, for almost every report that he wrote on major catches, there were several different versions.
Alas, I didn't get very far to read all of them. The book is quite large (over 400 pages) and extremely detailed. Tom Segev is a historian and an Israeli journalist and it shows. There's way too many facts (some irrelevant) and the writing is disjointed. After reading 30 pages, I was exhausted. Perhaps someone else can tackle Wiesenthal's life and be a much better author.

Wisenheimer : A Childhood Subject to Debate
by Mark Oppenheimer

The most interesting part of this book is the outside cover. The title is written as: wis-en-heim-er and then goes on to give the meaning of the word telling you that it is a noun and can be of German origin. Clever and that's where it stops.
Mark Oppenheimer was a child who talked like an adult and because of this didn't really have any friends and had no social skills. Most people found him irritating. When he found debating, he was finally fulfilled.
I lasted until page 48. It's very hard to read about somebody who is totally self-absorbed and an elitist. Oppenheimer is supposed to be good with words, but his writing is boring. He teaches English at Yale. I wouldn't want to be in that class.

Quiet Hero : Secrets From My Father's Past
by Rita Cosby

Six years after her mother died, Rita Cosby found all kinds of stuff about her father, hidden in storage, that she never knew before about him. Too many scars about what happened to him in Poland during WWII. When her father is 84, she finally interviews him.
Cosby is supposed to be this award-winning journalist who knows how to ask tough questions. The problem is her way of presenting them to her father is irritating and with an air of naivete. I couldn't stand it. Plus, her writing is less than stimulating. Most of it seems juvenile.
I would have liked to have read about her father's exploits during the war, but let somebody else write about it.

Riding With Reindeer : A Bicycle Odyssey Through Finland, Lapland, And Arctic Norway
by Robert M. Goldstein

Imagine riding a bicycle 2,000 miles starting from Helsinki and ending up at the Barents Sea. You have to deal with horrendous storms, bears, wolves and most of the time set up a tent for your sleeping arrangements.
Robert Goldstein, in 2007, did such a feat on a folding bike with a wagon towed behind him.
Two years earlier, the author had taken another adventure on the Trans-Siberian Express, which apparently was a disaster. (He wrote about it.) Not having read this book, I wonder if it, too, became as annoying as the current one.
Riding With Reindeer had its moments, but they were few and far between. The author is very funny and writes about some hilarious things that happen to him. After a while, though, it becomes old.
I didn't finish the book. After plowing through three quarters of it, I just lost interest. The writing wasn't so great and became plodding. It's a shame because every town that he passed through was noted for either some historical figure or event and Goldstein had obviously done research to write about it.
If you're gung-ho about riding bicycles across foreign lands and dealing with the elements, this might be the book for you. For the rest of us, don't bother.

Welcome To Utopia : Notes From A Small Town
by Karen Valby

I really liked the introduction. You get an idea of what a small town is like that has no mayor, no stoplights, seven churches, no fast food, no movie theaters, etc.
Utopia is in Texas and the original name was Montana. The guy who renamed it was the first postmaster. Quirky information that I find fascinating, but it came to a screeching halt in the first chapter. The author starts mentioning some of the characters she meets and their deadening conversation. Ho, hum.
Too bad. It looked like the book was going to be fun and entertaining. No such luck.

Poorly Made In China : An Insider's Account Of The Tactics Behind China's Production Game
by Paul Midler

Let's reword the title: Poorly Written Book On China.
There have been several books describing factory-made products in China and none of them have been good. This latest volume is just as bad.
The author, who is fluent in Mandarin and has a Wharton MBA (uh oh), is a buffer between Chinese companies and foreign importers. Everybody wants to work with him, so that they can be one step ahead in the new economy. Sound exciting? Not really.
It's certainly not enlightening nor entertaining as is written in the dust jacket. There's no continuity and everything is choppy.
I guess if one is a business major, in college, this might be required reading, but for the rest of us, stay very far away.

When Things Get Dark : A Mongolian Winter's Tale
by Matthew Davis

I should have know better as soon as I saw Peter Hessler's one-line review on the outside of the book: "Matthew Davis's portrait of Mongolia is riveting, insightful, and deeply honest." I can't say that I agree with any of this.
Davis goes to Mongolia, as a Peace Corp volunteer, to teach English. He lives his life pretty much the way the people do. The students are not all that interested in learning much of anything and he is not allowed to fail any of them.
The Mongolians are fed up with their lives, so drinking and being drunk are the norm.
The most interesting parts of the book is when Davis writes about the history of the country and the culture.
One thing that I found really irritating was the absence of a pronunciation guide for all of the Mongolian words scattered throughout the text. At the end, there is a glossary, but that's all. I bring this up because of Chinggis Khan. How is this pronounced? Most of us know this revered man in Mongolia (everything is named for him) with his name spelled as Ghengis Khan. Being a language nut, this bothers me. How difficult would it have been, before the story began, to give a brief description of the linguistic nuances?
The book is badly in need of a good editor and was probably never proofread. There are many pages with entire words missing.
I am sure that most of us really have no need or desire to read about Mongolia. This morbid tale took care of that.

For All The Tea In China : How England Stole The World's Favorite Drink And Changed History
by Sarah Rose

I was really hoping that this book would be as terrific as the title sounds. The synopsis on the dust jacket certainly was intriguing.
Robert Fortune, a Scottish botanist, is sent to China, by the East India Company, to steal seeds and young plants (he is dressed as a mandarin with a long pigtail and appropriate clothing). The tea will be shipped to India and grown in the rich soil of the Himalayas.
It's too bad that the writing wasn't better. The first fifty pages were pretty boring (it took that long just to get to the crux of the story). I should have just stopped right then and there, but I was hoping that the tale would pick up some steam. It didn't.
The reviews on Amazon are insane: riveting, a thriller, can't put it down, suspenseful, fascinating, etc.
Don't waste your time with this one.

Hunting Evil
by Guy Walters

A massive book on tracking down Nazis who committed horrific crimes during the Holocaust could have been really fascinating if only it was better written.
There's tons of names and they are introduced with so much detail that you can't even remember what the heck you read.
The most revelatory chapter was the bashing of Simon Wiesenthal. He was given all kinds of awards, during his lifetime, for his endless searching of Nazis. Apparently, though, he wasn't entirely truthful about himself and his work. Most of what he wrote in his three autobiographies was false and contradictory.
There was plenty of material about Wiesenthal, but I didn't stick with the book to find out what other fabrications he concocted.
There's plenty of great works about the Holocaust and the perpetrators. Hunting Evil is not one of them.

Mrs. Adams In Winter : A Journey In The Last Days Of Napoleon
by Michael O'Brien

I didn't get very far with this book. The preface was interesting, but the first chapter ground me to a halt, more specifically with the first sentence.
"She was in a hurry, because anxious." I find this truly appalling. If the book starts out with missing words, how many more will not be there?
Furthermore, what I did read was just not interesting enough to keep my attention. It was, actually, downright boring.

Never Tell Our Business To Strangers : A Memoir
by Jennifer Mascia

The first part of the title is very appropriate, but the subtitle should be: Don't Write About It, Either.
This book was HORRENDOUS. Very poorly written, redundant, repetititive, boring, etc.
The author is a child of two criminals and they spend most of their lives on the lam.
Why would I ever consider reading a book with this subject matter? Well, it's not what I thought it was going to be. The synopsis on the dust jacket sounded really good.
There's too much minutiae and not enough substance.
The book just stinks.

Dancing On Ice : A Stirring Tale of Adventure, Risk And Reckless Folly
by Jeremy Scott

There have been a whole slew of books written about polar exploration and most of them I have found to be quite compelling and well written. I thought I had found another winner. Not so.
Dancing On Ice is a tale about fourteen young men (all in their twenties) who go to the Arctic in order to find a better air route between Europe and America. They are led by Gino Watkins known for his climbing, shooting, hunting, and kayaking skills.
The story takes place in 1930 and these Brits really only know how to party, drink and dance the nights away. Their whole reason for going in the first place was to have a bit of fun. Most of them really had no idea of what they wanted to do with their lives and this trip sounded intriguing.
I stopped reading the book after sixty-three pages. It started out being interesting and then it just got dry. The editing is very, very sloppy. The same set of mistakes is repeated over and over again.
There are photographs that I believe the author lifted from another book on the Arctic, because I have seen them, many times, before.
There haven't been any professional reviews done and now I know why.
Forget about this one.

The Butterfly Mosque : A Young American Woman's Journey To Love And Islam
by G. Willow Wilson

Growing up as a child of atheist parents, Willow would always have questions about other faiths and never got any answers. While she was at college, she took a course in Islamic studies and voila, that was it. She starts learning the Arabic language and then converts, secretly. But, the only way to really immerse yourself in the Muslim world is to live in the Middle East. Willow goes to Cairo to teach English, meets and falls in love with Omar, who teaches physics and embraces a new life.
This sounds more like fiction than non-fiction, but it's all true. I really wanted to like this book, and in the beginning, I did. Her writing is good, but not gorgeous as most reviewers have said. After reading 170 pages, I became irritated by her. As if living in Eygpt was not enough, Willow went to Iran for one month to see what that country was like.
I think she is extremely naive and gullible. Why would an American female want to give up her freedom and live in a culture that subjugates women?
The book is neither uplifting nor inspiring. It's just plain annoying.
Not recommended.

The Art Detective: Fakes, Frauds, And Finds And The Search For Lost Treasures
by Philip Mould

Philip Mould is an authority on British portraiture and a fixture on the British version of the BBC's Antiques Roadshow. He travels all over the world to buy art for his gallery and writes about how his restorers perform marvelous wizardry to reveal what was originally painted. I found that stuff to be fascinating, but unfortunately, the book started to flatline after several chapters.
Mould writes about six different paintings and their backgrounds (all with some sort of mystery), but there's no oomph in them. I found the writing to be boring and just not exciting.

Medium Raw : A Bloody Valentine To The World Of Food And The People Who Cook
by Anthony Bourdain

If you enjoy reading books, where the "f" word is very pervasive, then this one is for you. Why Bourdain feels that expletive is so necessary to state his point of view becomes old fast. Ten years ago, he wrote Kitchen Confidential and this is pretty much the same thing. It's just another rant about the food world with or without his involvement.
After thirty-eight pages, I got tired of reading about his boozing and drug addiction. How some reviewers think this book is more refined and he is mellower is a joke. I guess you have be a fan and I am certainly not one of them.
Don't bother picking this book up, anywhere.

The Art Of Eating In : How I Learned To Stop Spending and Love The Stove
by Cathy Erway

The author should just stick to writing blogs, which she does, anyway with: www.noteatingoutinny.com, where she writes about home-cooked food.
The information that is presented, in this book, is only mildly interesting.
Cathy Erway decides to do an experiment and not eat out in New York for two years. She loves to cook, anyway, and figures that it will be fun. Too bad the book wasn't fun. With three chapters to go and 42 more pages to read, I could no longer stomach it.
While recipes are included, at the end of each chapter, I wasn't interested in trying any of them.
There are many more better written books on food.

Life Would Be Perfect If I Lived In That House
by Meghan Daum

I would change to title to: "Life Would Be Perfect If I Had Never Checked This Book Out Of The Library."
I read the prologue and the first chapter and closed it up. The author is obsessed with looking for her dream place to live and is addicted to real estate.
Not very interesting and right from the beginning, I found the writing tedious and shallow.
Don't bother with this one.

The Mystery of Lewis Carroll: Discovering the Whimsical, Thoughtful, and Sometimes Lonely Man Who Created Alice in Wonderland
by Jenny Woolf

What started out to be a fascinating analysis of Lewis Carroll, the writer of Alice in Wonderland, degenerated into a dry, repetitive, boring treatise that left many blanks. Carroll kept diaries, but from 1852-1862 these years have disappeared and so the author surmises or invents what maybe could have happened to Carroll at that time.
Another screwed-up author, who likes children (mostly female), never marries, is secretive, and lives alone.
The most bothersome thing, to me, was the excruciatingly, sloppy editing. Punctuation was horrendous with missing periods and incorrect placement of quotation marks.
Stay, very far, away from this one.

Schmucks!: Our Favorite Fakes, Frauds, Lowlifes, Liars, the Armed and Dangerous, and Good Guys Gone Bad
by Jackie Mason and Raul Felder

A comedian and a celebrity divorce attorney (oy vey) collaborate to write about everything and anything that pisses them off: Madonna, the French, Tom Cruise, the New York Times, Hillary Clinton, the ACLU, etc.
Each chapter is really a short vignette of one or two pages.
The book is pretty awful and very juvenile. Not funny, at all.
Don't bother taking this one off the shelf.

Enlightening the World: The Creation of the Statue of Liberty
by Yasmin Sabina Khan

Although two customers on Amazon gave this book five stars and thought it was so captivating and lively, I beg to differ.
It started out being very interesting. France was grieving over Abraham Lincoln's assassination, so a man by the name of Laboulaye, a legal scholar, wanted to celebrate the friendship between France and America. He enlisted sculptors, architects, and engineers to build a huge monument.
Alas, after 70 pages, I stopped reading the book. It became pedantic, dry and just not worth continuing.
The author is an independent scholar. Enough said.

Country Driving: A Journey Through China from Farm to Industry
by Peter Hessler

I think I really should just give up on attempting to read any more books written by Peter Hessler. His first book, River Town was his best and he should have stopped, there. Oracle Bones was his second and I hated it. (My commentary is on this blog.)
Now, Hessler has a new book, which is basically about driving 7,000 miles across China. The most interesting sections are the people that he meets in the rural areas, the questions that are asked on the written driver's exam and how the Chinese, themselves, drive.
Hessler has been a reporter for years and it shows. He should just stick to that venue and forget about writing books.

Literary Life: A Second Memoir
by Larry McMurtry

What a disappointment! His first book Books (reviewed in Book-a-holics) was fascinating reading, about his serious book collecting.
Literary Life is what you should read if you can't get to sleep at night. So boring. He writes about the people he met while at college (all literary figures), but his style is blah with no life in it.
I hope there is NOT a third memoir.

Mark Twain's Other Woman: The Hidden Story of His Final Years
by Laura Skandera Trombley

Having recently read a terrific book on Mark Twain (reviewed in Book-a-holics) this book caught my eye and I thought it would be interesting. Well, it was for the first chapter for Twain's early life and how he met Isabel Lyon who would become his secretary and manager of his household. I didn't actually finish the first chapter. It became long and meandering and boring.
On the back flap, it says that biographers have deliberately omitted the mere mention of Isabel Lyon, which is just not true.
It also says the book is riveting. Another lie.
Don't even bother reading this ho-hum tale.

Street Without A Name : Childhood and Other Misadventures in Bulgaria
by Kapka Kassabova

No, this book is not stunningly and beautifully written as reviewers have said. It certainly doesn't appear as if it was proofread. Between the numerous amounts of metaphors and misplaced punctuation, Street Without A Name should be sent back to the publisher.
The most interesting sections were growing up under communism in a country most people never really hear about. Unfortunately, though, as noted above, the errors detracted from what could have been an enjoyable read.
Leave this book on the shelf.

Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean: How a Generation of Swashbuckling Jews Carved Out an Empire in the New World in Their Quest for Treasure, Religious Freedom--and Revenge
by Edward Kritzler

I thought that this book would be intriguing. I should have known better with such a long title.
The premise is in order to avoid persecution in the Old World, Jews took to the seas.
In much better hands, this book could have been promising. The author is a historian and a journalist and it shows. He writes as if he's a reporter. It's very boring, with too many characters thrown at you at once, and he's repetitious.
Needless to say, I didn't get too far.
Don't bother with this one.

Backing into Forward : A Memoir
by Jules Feiffer

I probably should have checked Publishers Weekly's review of this book before I requested it from the library. I never agree with PW. They gave Feiffer's book a Starred Review. So did other professional journals.
I could not get beyond the first chapter. Feiffer is probably a much better cartoonist than a writer of books. I was bored and I found the writing stilted.
Back to the library it goes.

Little Boy Blues : A Memoir
by Malcolm Jones

Jones grew up in North Carolina during the 1950s and 1960s with parents who accepted, quite willingly, racism. He was basically raised by elderly relatives. His parents' marriage was dismal and eventually led to divorce mostly because of the father's long absences from home.
I barely lasted thirty pages with this book. The writing is blah, emotionless, and the worst part, studded with metaphors.
Don't bother.

Americans in Paris : Life and Death Under Nazi Occupation
by Charles Glass

Right before World War II, there were 30,000 Americans living in Paris. When the Germans entered that number dropped to 3,000.
The ones that remained were of the wealthy class. Some became collaborators while others joined the Resistance.
Sound like a good book? I thought so. But, no, it's not the case. The Introduction and the first chapter were the most interesting parts and then, it went downhill, fast.
The problem is that it reads like one giant gossip column with a million names tossed in all over the place and you're trying to figure out why these people are mentioned anyway. Also, the book is quite large at 400 plus pages.
So much for the author, Charles Glass, being touted as a first-class journalist. What a joke!
Not recommended.

A Mountain of Crumbs : A Memoir
by Elena Gorokhova

This book has had so much fanfare for months. The reviews have been over the top. I really should stop reading them.
The author grew up in Leningrad during the 1960s. She tells of the deprivation her family went through. I suffered just trying to read the first couple of chapters.
Elena Gorokhova always loved the English language and always wanted to write. Her mentor was Frank McCourt when she took a class taught by him.
Nothing irritates me more than when an author uses metaphors constantly as is the case here. All it is is filler and doesn't add anything to the story. It detracts from it.
No gorgeous writing as many critics have exclaimed. If anything, the writing seems forced and not natural.
There are many more excellent books about Russia, so don't bother with "A Mountain of Crumbs."

Born Round : The Secret History of a Full-time Eater
by Frank Bruni

Being addicted to food, to the point where your life is totally consumed by it, is what Frank Bruni generates throughout this book. He was a chubby child and became a quite large adult. Born into an Italian family, the meals were of gargantuan portions.
He was constantly on a rollercoaster ride with his weight.
In 2004, he became the food critic of The New York Times a challenge in and of itself.
I so thought that I would totally love this book and place it on my other blog. Twice, I renewed it, placed a hold on it to retrieve it from another library (the first copy was due and had to be returned) and read it from beginning to end.
The first sections were really interesting, the middle started to drag and the last parts were a yawn. He writes like a reporter (his background and previous career) and almost nothing, of what I read, is funny.
Bruni has received plenty of accolades from several reviewers praising him for being honest, unflinching, warm, amusing, endearing, etc. Give me a break. Did any of these people actually read this thing?
Not recommended, at all.

Thank Heaven : A Memoir
by Leslie Caron

While she may have been entrancing as an actress, Leslie Caron is certainly not entrancing as a writer. I lasted three chapters. In better hands, presumably a well-established author, (who gave her the idea in the first place to write her autobiography), maybe the book would have been readable.
Skip this one.

Neverland : J.M. Barrie, the Du Mauriers and the Dark Side of Peter Pan
by Piers Dudgeon

Maybe I should not have checked this book out, in the first place, due to the author's last name. How appropriate for the likes of J.M. Barrie. He really was a creepy, depraved boy-child. Everyone who entered his life was doomed.
The more I read, the more I disliked. The writing is tedious, loaded with footnotes and pedantic.
Don't bother with this tiresome tale.

Julie & Julia : 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen
by Julie Powell

I picked this book up, from the library, years ago, before it was ever turned into a movie. Don't put this one on your list. I struggled to read several chapters before I finally gave up. Not well-written at all and irritating, to boot.

Eat, Pray, Love : One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia
by Elizabeth Gilbert

Interminably boring. I lasted, barely, one chapter. Gilbert is totally self-absorbed and annoying. It's hard to believe that this book was so popular.

This Book is Overdue! : How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All
by Marilyn Johnson

I knew that I was in trouble when I got to page 8 and realized this book was doomed. When the author talks about librarians' values, such as truth, free speech, and universal literacy, we are in trouble.
I got as far as page 60 and slammed the book shut. Being a former librarian, this book reminds me of why I left the profession in the first place.
The author is over exuberant about libraries teaching everyone in the whole world how to use a computer so they can become more literate and learn how to obtain information.
What a joke! If anything, computers in libraries have promoted illiteracy. Nobody is reading books, they sit glued to the screens looking at god knows what, send e-mails with incorrect grammar and spelling and have made libraries into video arcades.
The title of the book isn't even correct. It has nothing to do with books.
Don't bother checking this one out.

Oracle Bones : A Journey Between China's Past and Present
by Peter Hessler

I was really looking forward to reading this one. The author had written a spectacular book, several years ago, called "River Town" which described his experience living in the Sichuan province of Fuling and teaching English at the local college, while also learning to speak Chinese.
Oracle Bones never reaches or comes close to the previous book. Hessler's writing changed and what was refreshing, before, has now become annoying. He's attempting to ride on his former accolades and doesn't succeed.
I barely finished the first chapter. Back to the library.

Dreaming in Hindi
by Katherine Russell Rich

If you were language-challenged, would you consider going to India to learn Hindi?
That's just what the author did. She survived cancer, so she thought she could take up something else that would open her mind and give her a whole new experience.
This book goes nowhere, fast. It's all over the place with shoddy writing and lousy editing.
I got through several chapters and then gave up in disgust.

City of Gold : Dubai and the Dream of Capitalism
by Jim Krane

Dubai is one of the seven United Arab Emirates and certainly doesn't follow by any its rules. It started from nothing, in the 1960s, and became a haven for investors all due to the visions of very savvy sheikhs from one family.
Krane packs the book with great details of history and current events and there's incredible color photos of some amazing architecture.
City of Gold came to a crashing halt for me when the author introduced his political views concerning pollution. I only had another forty pages to go, but, unfortunately, politics got in the way and so, this book went right back to the library.

Jacob's Cane : A Jewish Family's Journey from the Four Lands of Lithuania to the Ports of London and Baltimore; A Memoir in Five Generations
by Elisa New

Unless you're affiliated with a university and enjoy reading dry, densely-packed historical information, don't bother with this book. (The author is a college professor of American Literature at Harvard.)
The premise certainly sounded interesting: finding your great-grandfather's cane with four sets of initials, with the towns, carved on it and wanting to know the origins. Elisa New travelled to all of the countries, interviewed relatives, and sought out archives to unravel the story.
Unfortunately, the book left me empty. No warmth exuded from the pages. I don't believe anybody proofread it, either. There were many grammatical errors and misspellings. I actually contacted the author to apprise her of that fact. She wrote back asking me where I lived, why I bought the book (no purchase, took out from my local library), and if I liked it. I responded by saying that I don't believe many people would be interested in this volume, except perhaps elderly Jewish people who could relate to similiar instances.
Elisa was surprised to hear that there were so many errors. Apparently, I was the first person to find them. A paperback edition is already in the works and what I found and sent to her will be fixed.

One and the Same : My Life As an Identical Twin and What I've Learned About Everyone's Struggle to be Singular
by Abigail Pogrebin

What started out to be a very interesting book, turned out to be, in very little time, extremely boring and not all well-written. After a few chapters, I closed up the book and returned it to the library.