While We Were Watching Downton Abbey by Wendy Wax

I was drawn to this because of the Downton Abbey connection.

Three women, Claire, Samantha and Brooke, live in the same apartment on Peachtree St. They are different ages, at different stages in their lives and from different economic backgrounds. Samantha is married and has two really bratty siblings she raised after her parents died. Claire is an author and single mom whose daughter just let for college. Brooke is a stay at home mom who is divorced from a man she dubs, well deservedly, his assholiness and has 2 young daughters.

The new concierge in their building is an Englishman named Edward who organizes a weekly gathering in the building around the watching of Downton Abbey.

The three women become friends and the process of their personal growth and the growth as friends is the story that Wax tells.  Nothing too heavy here. Just a well told story that has likable characters you well feel drawn too and unlikable characters that you will really want to punch joined around an interesting hook, a show I love and know many of you do too.

(Finished March 22, 2014)

The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II by Denise Kiernan

You might expect that because this is a book about the creation of the atomic bomb and everything that went into compiling the materials needed that it would be dry and boring. You would be very wrong.

I had to keep reminding myself that this was all real and these women were all real. The writing is so engaging and well paced that it felt like a story about some amazing women with WWII as the backdrop. 

The story of The Manhattan Project and the testing of atomic bombs in New Mexico is pretty well known. What is lesser known is the story of Oak Ridge Tennessee and the community that sprung up there in almost complete secrecy. No one knew exactly what and why they were doing things, they only knew what to do to get their job done. It was forbidden to talk to each other about what you did at your job. And people complied. The people who came to Oak Ridge to work believed in their mission, to help end the war and bring their men home.

Kiernan doesn't sugar coat the story of Oak Ridge. One of the women whose story she writes about is a black woman names Kattie. Because of her skin color she was not allowed to bring her children or even live with her husband who also worked there. The white families were allowed to bring children, married couples were allowed to live together. The food served to the white population was better, many of the black residents got sick from the poor food they were served. The housing conditions were much better for the white residents. White residents lived in dorms, trailers and prefab houses while the black residents lived in crowded sub-par structures. The pay for the same job was less for the black workers than what was paid to their white counter parts. Part of Kattie's story was how she managed to get a worker to make her some biscuit pans out of scrap metal and she was able to make cornbread and biscuits and used them to bribe the guards so she wouldn't get hassled for visiting her husband and for cooking in the hutments even though it was forbidden. She was a loving wife and mother, a very patriotic woman who did her job above and beyond what was expected of her and just wanted to help her country and make money to support her family. She never complained.

This was a really interesting story and a part of history that should be remembered.

(Finished March 20, 2014)

The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson

I don't even know where to begin in describing this book. It was gruesome. Painful. Spiritual. Lovely.

A porno actor, director, writer, womanizer, druggie gets into a horrific car accident and is terribly burned but rather than kill him it starts his life.

He meets Marianne Engel who just might be certifiably nuts. She spins the most amazing tales that are full of love and lessons on living.

Marianne's story is incredible and shoe gives it out in small pieces but the stories she shares about others are just as amazing. But are they true? Maybe. Maybe not. But after all is said and done it doesn't matter, it's better to just take it in and enjoy.

I found this to be a well written, heartbreaking yet lovely read.

War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning by Chris Hedges

This book was assigned for my Propaganda and War class and am glad because I would have been missing out on a powerful and important read.


Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist who spent over a decade reporting from the battlefield. In War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning Hedges writes with gut wrenching honesty about the cost of war on those who fight and those who get caught up in the crossfire. He shares insights from what he witnessed, what those he spoke to in all the war torn areas he was in shared with him, and from the literature he spent a long time finding refuge in.

War is like a drug, it becomes addicting and draws both reporter and service personal back time after time. Many, including Hedges find it difficult to come back to the world of everyday living once they have lived the adrenaline fueled life of war.  Sanity, familial and other relationships, and often the physical health of the returnee are the high price paid.

Not a pleasant read but very well done, this book sheds light on the myth of war, the problems caused by nationalism taken to the extremes and the cost beyond money that war inflicts on society.

(Finished February 22, 2014) 

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children #1) by Ransom Riggs

For as long as he can remember Jacob's grandpa filled his head with stories of life on an island living in a children's home during WWII. The stories were filled with children who could do amazing and odd things and monsters hiding in the shadows. As Jacob gets older he begins to doubt the truth of these stories even though his grandpa has shown him pictures of these children.

Then tragedy strikes and Jacob goes in search of the truth. What follows is a well spun tale filled with a growing sense of tension and becoming a bit scary. The characters are fascinating and well drawn. The odd and old pictures scattered throughout the book add a really nice dimension to the story. Don't let the fact that this is a YA book fool you into thinking this is fluff or going to go easy on you. While it isn't horror or gore like Koontz or King it ventures towards that level and I found myself feeling a bit anxious and tense.  

The book ends with a very big cliffhanger making the need for the next part of the story feel like a craving.

(Finished February 8, 2014)

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

While I have seen the film version many years ago this was my first read of the novel. It was assigned for my Propaganda and War class.


I found the thought of living in the world in this book to be horrific. I couldn't stand to live in a world where books were outlawed and getting caught with them means they would be burned along with my home. I think I would be like the woman in who couldn't just watch her precious books go and so burned them and herself along with them.


I think that had I read this in junior high or early high school it would have mostly gone over my head. There is a bit of a hyper active feeling to the writing, like things start out a little slow and quickly begin to spiral out of control until Guy ends up with the outsiders who I have thought of ever since seeing the film as the book people. And I think that is part of the point here, how once you become aware of the problem and want to act that things begin to move and move quickly at times.

I don't remember the film ending the way the novel did and was a little shocked, but it has been over 20 years since I saw it.

Not the easiest of reads but rather quick and very thought provoking.

(Finished February 7, 2014)

Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime by John Heilemann, Mark Halperin

Heilemann and Halperin have an accessible and easy to get into writing style. They shine a light on the behind the scenes play that is a political campaign revealing the good, bad, ugly and stupid. I read their second Game Change book before I read this, their first and knew I wanted to go back and read it. Then I saw the HBO movie based on the parts of this book and knew I had to go back and read it.


Some of the stuff revealed here sound like the makings of a good soap opera, sex, scandals, fits of rage and acting like a child, except these are real people asking us to vote them into positions of power. 

Heilemann and Halperin were able to get some really deep access to the campaigns and those involved and the results aren't always flattering but that's the way life goes so I'm not sure I should have enjoyed this book. There are some (John Edwards & his wife, Sarah Palin) that are really exposed here for their bad behavior. But I really enjoyed it.

There was a downside however. My opinions about some of the people featured might need to be reevaluated given the things they have said or done during the course of the 2008 election season. It's a good thing to have more information, to really think and rethink what we believe, know and feel. That doesn't mean it is easy or pleasant but it's important.

(finished February 3, 2014)