Read The World - Solomon Islands - Headhunting In The Solomon Islands

Book: Headhunting In The Solomon Islands
Author: Caroline Mytinger
Pages: 444
Book takes place in the country: YES
Author is from the country: NO (but she lived there for a few years)
I have visited: NO

This is my 41st read for the year

This is the story of the author and her friend, Margaret Warner, who were both artist.  In the 1930's they spent 2 years on an expedition to paint indigenous people in the Solomon Islands.  This book recounts her and Margaret's travels and the people that they met along the way.  She speaks of the beautiful things they saw, but also the infections, insects, the heat, and the fevers.  Their adventure - basically unheard of by women in their time - led to fear for their family and friends.  No one expected them to come back alive.  They brought back beautiful paintings, but tons of stories that lead to this book.

This book was pretty good!  I was pretty interested in these women traveling to the Solomon Islands in the 1930s and what they thought.  Their stories are enjoyable and it was fun to see these women trying something outside of their comfort zone.  These were early feminist, but one does have to remember that they are writing descriptions of the people they met would not be acceptable today.  However - knowing what year it was, this did not deter from the book at all.

I enjoyed it.  Glad I found this one.

Stars: 4

Extra Book: In Five Years

Book: In Five Years
Author: Rebecca Serle
Pages: 266

This is my 40th read for the year.

I listened to this book as well.  This book was the last one I listened to while I completed that puzzle - it is finally finished!

Here is what Amazon had to say about this book: 

"Where to you see yourself in five years?  Dannie Kohan lives her life by the numbers.  She is nothing like her lifelong best friend - the wild, whimsical, believes-in-fate Bella.  Her meticulous planning seems to have paid off after she nails the most important job interview of her career and accepts her boyfriend's marriage proposal in one fell swoop, falling asleep completely content.

But when she awakens, she's suddenly in a different apartment, with a different ring on her finger, and beside a different man.  Dannie spends one hour exactly five years in the future before she wakes again in her own home on the brink of midnight - but it is one hour she cannot shake."

This was an okay book.  Very fluffy - a light read.  It isn't something I would generally pick (or enjoy), but it helped pass some time while working on the puzzle.  I found myself rolling my eyes a few times while I read the book.  Dannie's life is REALLY perfect.  Everything works out for her.  She gets the perfect job, guy, ring.  She is well loved on all levels - no matter what she does.  

There are aspects of the book that will pull at your heart strings, and so if you are looking for a light read, then maybe check this one out.  It isn't great literature, but it might be for you.

Stars: 3

Extra Book: Eight Perfect Murders

Book:  Eight Perfect Murders
Author: Peter Swanson
Pages: 388

This is my 39th read for the year

I listened to this book.  I have been working on a 4000 piece puzzle while we have been in quarantine for Covid-19, so audiobooks have been my go to recently. 

This is the story of bookseller Malcolm Kershaw who made a list of 8 books that he felt told the story of 8 perfect murders.  It was for a blog he was using to help promote books at the bookstore he owned, and didn't expect it to mean anything to anyone.  One day - an FBI agent comes knocking at his door and tells him that someone he committing murders based on the 8 books/murders he wrote about on his blog.  Malcolm is worried that he could be a suspect, so he starts to investigate himself into who might be commit these murders.  What it leads to is a shocking twist in the story and Malcolm finds his own life in danger.

This was a good book.  I love murder mystery books, so when this one came out, I wanted to try it.  It is a good story, and well written.  I wasn't sure where it was going (except I was sure Malcolm was not the murdered), which to mean makes a good read.  I encourage you to try this one.

Stars: 4

Extra Book: The Wives

Book: The Wives
Author: Tarryn Fisher
Pages: 336

This is my 38th read for the year

This is the story of a young girl who is one of three wives.  Her husband has two other wives that she has never met.  Her husband won't even tell her their names, so she calls them Monday and Tuesday.  One day she finds a receipt in her husband's pants pocket and she realizes it is the name of one of his other wives.  This starts her down a rabbit hole of finding out who this woman is and what she is like.  And that leads for the search for her husband's first wife.  Soon secrets come to the surface and she isn't sure she should have ever started the search.  Now she feels that one of the wives is in danger and she is doing everything she can to protect her and herself.

This was a good book.  It is hard to see where it is going until the end, which was great.  I purposefully didn't put the name of the main character in this review becuase it is not revealed to us until further into the book.  And to me, it makes a difference when her name is reveals.  There are twists and turns where you think you have it figured out and then the book takes a different direction than you expect.  It was a great book to listen to and I found myself looking for time to listen just to see where this story was going to go.  I highly recommend it. 

Stars: 4

Read The World - Saint Lucia - Birthright

Book: Birthright
Author: Kendel Hippolyte
Pages: 124
Book takes place in the country: YES
Author is from the country: YES
I have visited: NO

This is my 36th read for the year

From the back of the book:  His poetry combines acute intelligence and passion, a barbed wit and lyrical tenderness.  There are poems of prophetic anger over the marginalisation of his island by the international money markets in a voice whose ancestry is Blake and Whitman, acute observations of both the beauty and the dereliction of St. Lucia and moving celebrations of love.  His style encompasses the popular resources of Caribbean culture and formal poetic structures.  

This was a good book.  I know I don't appreciate poetry as much as I should, and these books don't usually do much for me.  But his poems were easier to follow than some I have tried in the past, and I felt that they gave me good insight on how he felt about his island.  I am glad I found this one for this small country.

Stars: 4

Read The World - St. Vincent and the Grenadines - Islands of Eden

Book: Islands of Eden
Author: Ferenc Mate
Pages: 162
Book takes place in the country: YES
Author is from the country: NO
I have visited: NO

This is my 35th read of the year

This is a photographic book of the beautiful country of St. Vincent and the Grenadines.  I chose it because there isn't much out there for this small little country, and I am glad to have this visual art added to my collection of books.  The photography is beautiful!

Stars: 4

Read The World - Lebanon - The Hakawati

Book: The Hakawati
Author: Rabih Alameddine
Pages: 529
Book takes place in the country: YES
Author is from the country: YES
I have visited: NO

This is my 34th read of the year.

I know it has been a long time since I blogged about a book.  The Coronavirus quarantine is stil going on, and so my house is full of children and a husband on constant conference calls.  I am having a hard time getting into reading these days.  I have been busying myself with baking and building a 4000 piece puzzle.  Not doing as much reading as I would like.  I am hoping that soon we will be back to normal.

My laziness is increased to not typing out the synopsis of this book, but copying what Amazon has to say about it here:

In 2003, Osama al-Kharrat returns to Beirut after many years in America to stand vigil at his father's deathbed.  As the family gathers, stories beging to unfold:  Osama's grandfather was a Hakawait, or a Storyteller, and his bewitching tales are interwoven with classic stories of the Middle East.  Here are Abraham and Isaac; Ishmael, father of the Arab tribes; the beautiful Fatima; Baybars, the slave prince who vanquished the Crusaders; and a host of Mischievous imps.  Through Osama, we also enter the world of the contemporary Lebanese men and women whose stories tell a larger, heartbreaking tale of seemingly endless war, conflicted identity and survival.

This was a pretty good book.  The stories were fantastic.  It is a little choppy as a book - weaving back and forth between story telling and what is happening in the hospital with Osama's father.  Sometimes the flow was not smooth - it took me a few chapters to get into it.  But I looked forward to the story telling parts of this book the most.  It was a facinating read that I encourage due to the fabulous fables.

Stars: 4