Summer Reading

I was very excited to get the email that three books I have had on hold at the library finally came up for my turn at bat and just in time for summer vacation reading.

The Blue Tattoo is a book I have been waiting a few months to read and am really excited to start.

This engaging biography examines the life of Olive Oatman, who was 13 years old when Indians attacked her Illinois Mormon family on its journey west; she was subsequently adopted and raised by the Mohave tribe. Mifflin (English, Lehman Coll., CUNY) tells Oatman’s story, from the unorthodox religious convictions that led her family west, through her captivity and assimilation into Mohave culture, to her rescue and reassimilation. Mifflin engagingly describes Oatman’s ordeal and theorizes about its impact on Oatman herself as well as on popular imagination. The author seeks to correct much of the myth that has sprung up around Oatman, owing partly to a biography written with Oatman’s participation during her life. Mifflin takes the position that Oatman was almost fully assimilated into Mohave culture and resisted “rescue,” and that her return to mainstream society was a cause of ambivalence, if not anxiety. Though Mifflin sometimes seems a bit eager to make this argument, her book adds nuance to Oatman’s story and also humanizes the Mohave who adopted her. Recommended for general readers as well as students and scholars.

And the Book Thief that I found for free, I am halfway through it and am enjoying it immensely, however it is rare for me to take such time reading a book. It is masterfully written but the material makes ones heart heavy and thus I have to take time away from it once in a while.

In this dark and powerfully absorbing novel, brilliantly executed by Australian author, Markus Zusak, Death narrates “just a small story, really.” It turns out to be the story of “the book thief,” Liesel Meminger, her foster family, neighbourhood friends, a Jewish amateur prizefighter in hiding, and a world gone mad with a global war and the horrors of the Holocaust. The Grim Reaper’s riveting tale goes far beyond “just a small story”, and every page deserves to be read.

And of course, heavy material must be balanced out with light! I love the JD Robb (Nora Roberts) books.

Light as a feather and tickles your fancy thusly.

Book 3 of the Darkest Powers series by Kelley Armstrong, this is her teen series. She writes the Women of the Otherworld series which I have blogged about before, and I will read pretty much anything she writes.

She has a new one coming out in a couple weeks, Waking the Witch. I CANNOT WAIT!