Marriage, a History: From Obedience to Intimacy, or How Love Conquered Marriage by Stephanie Coontz
This book is frustrating. It’s very informative and incredibly interesting (as Liz Gilbert promised in Committed), but it’s very hard to read. The book is organized by periods of history, but jumps around so wildly from anecdote to anecdote in different parts of the world. I find myself almost tired trying to keep up with the one paragraph about this, three paragraphs about that, a page here, a page there, pace of the book. There are all sorts of great moments and things that really make me think, but not enough time is spent on any one anecdote that I can stop to think about. Blah.
I would REALLY like to finish it, but I don’t know if I’m going to be able to. Putting in on hold for some solid fiction. View all my reviews »
Sometimes my Google Bookmark tags make me lol (I’m in the process of cleaning them up. EPIC is assigned to a comprehensive page of almost every restaurant ever and nutrition facts. KEEPING IT.)
Every time I start doing this, it’s just so freaking interesting. Hopefully this time I will actually put the information to use.
It certainly reflects where my life is at right now.
Later this year, when my health and fitness is at a nice stasis (hopefully), finances is going to be the next area of my life I tackle head-on.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This book really sucked me in. It took a solid 50 (nook) pages to get going (some of the initially story setup was a yawn-fest), but once the book got going I was hooked. The mystery our protagonist needs to solve is intriguing, the family that is mired in the craziness is fascinating, and the character development is engaging.
Tons of Swedish references, which were a little distracting at times (and yet they always talked temperature in Fahrenheit). Some of the techno-babble seemed like it was trying too hard. But overall, a solid mystery (or a mystery within a mystery).
When I started the book, I didn’t realize it was the first in a trilogy. Now I’m looking forward to the next two books! View all my reviews »










