Welcome to the July 2014 edition of my monthly book reviews! It’s been a busy reading month for me; what about for you? I started July on a bit of a non-fiction tear and then finished up the month with a pair of really excellent works of contemporary fiction. I’m really excited to share this month’s list, and I’d love to hear what you’re reading in the comments below!

Disclaimer: This post contains Amazon affiliate links. I make a (very) small referral commission for any purchases made using my links. 

Also, because I can never resist a surplus of metrics: this month’s page count is 2,022.

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[/one_half][one_half_last]My first reading endeavor this month was Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip and Dan Heath. The authors are academics and the book takes an in-depth look at what makes some ideas effortlessly memorable, while others remain impossible. On the whole it was an interesting read, but I found the last half of the book to be something of a slog. If you’d like to learn more, check out my in-depth post on how to make a story memorable.
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[/one_half][one_half_last] In my copious spare time, I happen to be a bit of a closet nutrition/food policy wonk and Whole: Rethinking the Science of Nutrition by T. Colin Campbell presents an interesting indictment of the establishment. When reading a book like this one it’s important to keep in mind the biases of the author and as a controversial proponent of a “whole foods plant based diet” to cure the so-called Western diseases, Campbell is undoubtedly biased. However, the man-against-the-institution atmosphere turns this book into an excellent underdog story and I think the book manages to achieve a reasonably fair assessment of how agriculture, big pharma, media, academic publishing, and research funding conspire to move our healthcare system (in America) in a direction that is great for company purses, but which doesn’t do much to promote the wellness of patients.
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[/one_half][one_half_last]This month’s first foray into fiction was Half of a Yellow Sun by the Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. I picked this up after having read Adichie’s more recent book, Americanah, and I have to say in my opinion Half of a Yellow Sun was by far the more enjoyable book. I really liked this one! Set in the ’60s and ’70s before and during the Nigerian civil war, Half of a Yellow Sun tells the story of the war and of life in the secessionist state of Biafra from a number of interwoven perspectives. The stories of twin sisters, their lovers (a British expat and an Igbo revolutionary), and a young servant boy twine together into a highly compelling narrative chronicling the rise and fall of the Biafran state. Warnings for graphic depictions of human cruelty and suffering and some unusually frank sexual content.

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[/one_half][one_half_last]As much as I enjoyed Half of a Yellow Sun, I think that All the Light We Cannot See: A Novel by Anthony Doerr ranks as my favorite read for this month. All the Light We Cannot See is set before, during, and after WWII and is the joint narrative of a blind girl (Marie-Laure) living in France and a brilliant German boy (Werner), an orphan who becomes a student at the Nazi Nationalpolitische Erziehungsanstalten. Their disparate paths collide during the bombing of the German-occupied city of Saint-Malo, in August 1944. Vividly imagined and utterly compelling, this book swept me up and carried me away. I’m not much of one for re-reading books, but this is one I may have to come back to someday. I highly recommend it!

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That’s it for me for July. Are you off to pick up a copy of any of these? Have a book you read last month that you’re dying to talk about? I’d love to hear from you in the comments below!

Tired of waiting for my monthly wrap-ups? I talk about what I’m reading each week in my email newsletter.

Welcome to the first of my monthly book reviews! For those of you who don’t know me, I read. A. Lot. My natural inclination is aided and abetted by a large number of hours spent commuting on the bus, which means I make it through a substantial number of books each month (I’ve read 30 so far this year). I love to talk about what I’m reading and I’m excited to bring this conversation to my blog so, without further ado, here are this month’s books.

Disclaimer: This post contains Amazon affiliate links. I make a (very) small referral commission for any purchases made using my links. 

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[/one_half][one_half_last]And the Mountains Echoed is a book that I enjoyed largely for the structure of the narrative. It’s a great example of a book that skillfully explores the ways in which human stories connect, across generations, decades, and continents. Because of its expansive timeline, the book has the opportunity to investigate how our pasts, our histories shape us, measuring the ripple-effect on human lives of choices made generations ago. I really liked this one, folks.
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[/one_half][one_half_last]Far and away the best book I read this month, The Orphan Master’s Son is a Pulitzer Prize winning novel about a North Korean man named Pak Jun Do, an orphan who grows up to lead an extremely improbable life. Both stunning and at times viscerally horrifying, the novel is a haunting and artful portrayal of a country and a culture so far removed from my own experience I find it hard to imagine. This was a fantastic book and I highly recommend it.
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[one_half_last]After reading and adoring Brene Brown’s most recent book, Daring Greatly. I was eager to get my hands on her previous book, The Gifts of Imperfection. Unfortunately, I suspect I should have read them in the reverse order, since much of the material is similar between the two books. Of the two, I’d say read Daring Greatly and maybe don’t bother with The Gifts of Imperfection unless you’re really looking for actionable strategies and more concrete direction on how to implement the ideas from Daring Greatly in your own life.[/one_half_last]

 

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[/one_half][one_half_last]I’m definitely more than a little late to the party on this one, but I picked this up from the library last week and wound up devouring it in less than a day. Great literature The Fault in Our Stars is not, but enjoyable YA fiction it most certainly is. With interesting characters and a somewhat more literary bent than most YA fiction, this is a story that I definitely enjoyed. Fair warning though: the end made me cry.[/one_half_last]

 

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[/one_half][one_half_last]This is the one I tried but didn’t finish. I wanted to like it; The Flamethrowers was a National Book Award finalist, and I can’t quibble with the quality of the writing itself, but I just couldn’t get into it. I didn’t find any of the characters to be particularly compelling or relatable, and the story meanders through different places and points in time without any real sense of direction. Whereas And the Mountains Echoed was a brilliant example of how stories can be connected and woven across time and place, The Flamethrowers falls flat. I do, however, have to give a shout out to Rachel Kushner’s prose, because there are moments of brilliance in the book— just not enough to keep my interest.

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Have you read any of these? Got a great book recommendation for my reading list? Let me know in the comments below!

Tired of waiting for my monthly wrap-ups? I talk about what I’m reading each week in my email newsletter.