Reading

I'm not doing so well keeping up with book reviews.

Bad Blood by Lorna Sage: Sage was a noted literary critic in the UK. This is her memoir of growing up in a small town in England after WWII with her man hating grandmother and her brilliant, but alcoholic and womanizing grandfather. It's amusing and interesting but not life changing
The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova: very overwritten for what is basically a vampire thriller. Also, the format was confusing. At one point I calculated that I was reading about someone reading a letter about someone reading a letter about someone reading a letter about someone reading a letter about someone doing something.
The Sea by John Banville: a depressed widower returns to the seaside town where he spent his depressing childhood. Someone drowned. eh. He got a Booker prize for this?

The big one:

A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah: unless you've been living under a rock, you've probably heard about this book - the publicity has been very widespread. Ishmael Beah grew up in Sierra Leone. At the age of 13, he got caught up in that country's civil war. His family was killed and he was forced into the army, kept hopped up on drugs, and taught to murder people without mercy. The book is hard to read, but hard to put down. Ishmael survived and recovered and was able to emigrate to the United States and graduate from Oberlin College. But his story is rare. The book filled me with a kind of helpless rage against what people can do to other people. Considering this, I'm not sure why I recommend this book, but I do. I think it should be required reading.