Saturday, May 12, 2012

Fearless by Eric Blehm, The Bloggess, and much more

So, I have a bit of catching up to do again. :) I just finished reading a book that comes out on May 22nd that was an excellent story and I think I'd recommend it to anyone: Fearless: The Undaunted Courage and Ultimate Sacrifice of Navy SEAL Team SIX Operator Adam Brown by Eric Blehm. It's a biography of a man of extraordinary strength and courage who never gave up. I'm not a religious person and there's a big element of that in this story but it was not off-putting and the whole thing was just very inspirational. Adam Brown was a member of SEAL Team Six but you should not buy this book if you are only interested in the story of Osama bin Laden's killing. That is an event beyond the borders of this story. There is a great quote from Adam on page 137 (it sounded a bit familiar so he may have been quoting someone else) that I really like and I think sums up very well the way he lived his life: "The truly courageous and powerful never have to prove it. It is always shown in their actions." Then there was Let's Pretend This Never Happened: (A Mostly True Memoir) by Jenny Lawson. I mainly read this book at work and was snorting with laughter so much that a bunch of my co-workers ended up ordering it just to find out what the deal was. I follow "The Bloggess" on twitter and read her blog when I see links to it and have always enjoyed reading what she has to say. She's a very entertaining storyteller and I can't wait until she writes another book. If you've ever thought that your family was strange or that you are a weirdness magnet, read this book and you will get a proper sense of perspective. I have yet to decide how much I liked White Horse: A Novel by Alex Adams. This is the first book in a trilogy (White Horse being a reference to the Biblical allusion to Death) and when I know that going into a book, I like to reserve my final judgement until I've completed the whole story. It's another dystopian tale that was very compelling, I'm just not sure where she's going to go with it. It was very well written and didn't seem to be targeted at a young adult audience, like so many with this theme seem to be lately. The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt was an interesting read. A story of two brothers who are hitmen in the Western United States during the time of the gold rush. It's told from the point of view of the younger, less bloodthirsty, of the two who once idolized his brother but doesn't think he's the best person anymore. It follows them on their journey of completing a job in California. It was a good story and well told but it was very understated for a tale of two murderers. I really enjoyed the relationship between Eli and his poor horse, Tub. The Song of Achilles: A Novel by Madeline Miller is an interesting telling of the life of Achilles told from the prospective of Patroclus. My mythology is a bit rusty and I need to re-read some of the other versions of this story but I don't remember Achilles and Patroclus being lovers but since Miller is a professor of mythology I'm willing to go with her version of much of this tale. I'd forgotten how young Achilles was when he went to war (I blame the fact that when I now mentally imagine this man, I picture Brad Pitt in his late 30's) so this was a very interesting way of putting it back into perspective for me. Very good book! I think part of why I liked it so much was that when I first really developed a love of reading was in Junior High School and I had an excellent teacher who introduced us to Homer. It brought me back to that time a bit and the nostalgia factor made a great book that much better. I'm getting ready to take on some lighter reading right now with Viscount Breckenridge to the Rescue: A Cynster Novel (Cynster Sisters Trilogy) by Stephanie Laurens.