Reading: Two for you
As you know, I don't get much time to read. Between driving to work, things to do at home and now knitting - my reading time has drastically changed. Now I listen to books on CD and downloaded books on my iPod. (Audible.com)
Anyway - I had two recommendations on books to read (actual in my hand books). One came to me in a decidedly odd way and the other as a recommendation by a friend.
Back on Blossom Street by Debbie Macomber
A few months ago I received an e-mail from a publisher (or something like that) asking me if they sent me Back on Blossom Street, would I review it and post about it on my blog. Needless to say, I was speechless for a few minutes, a little suspicious and then finally intrigued. I followed up with them and within the week, I had the book in hand. I read it a few days later and have just forgotten to post about it. Does that mean I didn't like the book - nope - it means I'm slack and I do apologize to the people who sent me the book. I did ask how they found me and they said, they did a search of knitting blogs and landed on mine and liked it. Wow!
So what did I think about it. Well, for those of you who don't know about this series of books, its basically about this knitting shop that on Blossom Street in Seattle. (fictional street and shop of course). In the first book you see the main character starting the store. The main character is the store owner and it goes through her her life (surviving cancer that has been with her throughout her life) and the class she starts on Baby Blankets and the three or four women who take the class. Each have their reasons for taking the class and each have very different personalities. They didn't know each other before and watching them interact and grow to be friends over knitting is kind of cool. She continued it with another book and now this book.
Sure the books are written to the same basic formula as book one. But it works. I know, some of you who don't knit may think this book is corny, but let me tell you, it isn't far off the mark. I belong to a knitting group (duh) and it is exactly like that. We meet as complete strangers and become friends. We help each other through knitting projects and sometimes through projects/problems in our lives. And that's why I like this series. It is true to life. Would I recommend this to non knitters - probably not.
Alas, Babalyon - by Pat Frank
I was talking with my friend Spazzmanda about books and we started talking about apocolypse type books. You know, books that talk about a major events that wipe out most of the people on earth and then how they handle it. I find these books intriguing because they seem so possible. The one I recommended was:
The Stand - by Stephen King - in this book, a plauge happens and it goes into how the human race survives. It approaches from a sociological/cultural view. Religion doesn't come into play much, but it is part of it in a weird Stephen King way. I really really like this book. Its a thick paperback and so looks kind of impressive to read. ; ) But size aside - this book is just plain interesting. King brings in all kinds of archetypes in the characters and really makes you think. What would happen and what would you do?
Anyway, that's neither here nor there when it comes to Alas, Babalyon. This book was written back in the 1950s during the height of the cold war. The method of apocolypse is Nuclear war. Russia bombs America, America bombs Russia and the world is changed forever. America becomes a third world country in a space of a breath. After that, the books focuses in on this one town in Florida and how it survives in the middle of a major contaminated zone. Partly through luck and partly through deterimination. This book was hard to get into at first, but once it got through the bombing part of it, watching them survive was quite inspiring.