Karen's Book Nook

As a Special Educator, I was looking forward to reading Born on a Blue Day: Inside the Mind of an Autistic Savant by Daniel Tammet, because I’m intrigued about what it “feels like” to be in his head and most especially, what the sensory issues are like.

About the book:

Born on a Blue Day is a journey into one of the most fascinating minds alive today — guided by the owner himself. Daniel Tammet is virtually unique among people who have severe autistic disorders in that he is capable of living a fully independent life and able to explain what is happening inside his head.

He sees numbers as shapes, colors, and textures, and he can perform extraordinary calculations in his head. He can learn to speak new languages fluently, from scratch, in a week. In 2004, he memorized and recited more than 22,000 digits of pi, setting a record. He has savant syndrome, an extremely rare condition that gives him the most unimaginable mental powers, much like those portrayed by Dustin Hoffman in the film Rain Man.

Fascinating and inspiring, Born on a Blue Day explores what it’ s like to be special and gives us an insight into what makes us all human — our minds.

My thoughts: While some parts of the book were a bit dry and drawn out (the mathematical stuff for me…) I loved reading about what it feels like from his perspective. I was encouraged to see his growth and his adaptation to the world around him despite his sensory issues and his limitations due to Asperger’s. It was great to see him forming relationships and encouraging to see such a wonderful family.  I recommend this book to anyone interested in spectrum disorders and also for those who appreciate memoirs about successful people.

Rating 4.5/5

Just in time for Mothers’ Day I finished Traveling with Pomegranates: A Mother-Daughter Story by Sue Monk Kidd and Ann Kidd Taylor.

About the Book:  In this wise and intimate dual memoir, Ann, and her mother, Sue Monk Kidd, author of New York Times bestselling novel, The Secret Life of Bees chronicle their travels together, and offer their distinct perspectives as a twenty-something and a fifty-something, each on a quest to redefine herself, and rediscover each other.  MORE HERE

My thoughts: I actually picked up this book based on the cover while browsing the new books in my library. Then I noticed that it was by Sue Monk Kidd. I loved The Secret Life of Bees and The Mermaid Chair.  This was a memoir by Sue and her daughter Ann and told of their travels, relationship and individual stories of growth. It took place during the time frame that Sue wrote Secret Life and it was interesting to see that story unfolding in this book. It makes me want to pick it up again and re-read it. At first I wasn’t sure if I would get into this book but I really enjoyed it.

My Rating: 4/5

Counts towards: Library Challenge, 100 Book Challenge

Jumping over to a memoir in The Christmas Box Miracle by Richard Paul Evans for my next book in the Holiday Reading Challenge.

About the book: It has been six years since Richard Paul Evans’ debut novel, The Christmas Box, catapulted him out of obscurity and onto to the bestseller lists. Now, the international bestselling author reveals the tragedies, triumphs, and turning points that led to his initial publishing success. In his first work of nonfiction, Evans is also at his most intimate. “This book is about forces that move about us like wind – unseen, yet powerful enough at times to knock us over. And it’s about a little Christmas tale I wrote that was the result of such forces. Some call these forces divinity, others call them coincidence. Some just call them magic.” More here.

My thoughts: I particularly enjoy memoirs and find my attention span when reading them to be the best of any type of book that I read. I tend to fly through them and don’t get distracted. It was nice to hear the story behind the story of his first book and the struggles that he endured to get it published and “make it”.  I read this little book in one sitting and inspired me to check out and reread The Christmas Box. (It’s in my TBR pile again.) This book is an inspiration to anyone who follows their dreams and their heart. I warmed my heart and made me smile.  It also renewed my faith in mankind and in divine intervention. I loved it!

Rating 5/5

I’ve been cranking through the audio books and today’s is the memoir Running With Scissors by Augusten Burroughs. (Now Reading can’t find the book but it’s there on Amazon, I see it.)

About the book: RUNNING WITH SCISSORS is the true story of a boy whose mother (a poet with delusions of Anne Sexton) gave him away to be raised by her psychiatrist, a dead-ringer for Santa and a lunatic in the bargain. Suddenly, at age twelve, Augusten Burroughs found himself living in a dilapidated Victorian in perfect squalor. The doctor’s bizarre family, a few patients, and a pedophile living in the backyard shed completed the tableau. Here, there were no rules, there was no school. The Christmas tree stayed up until summer, and Valium was eaten like Pez. And when things got dull, there was always the vintage electroshock therapy machine under the stairs…

My latest audio book is Kabul Beauty School: An American Woman Goes Behind the Veil by Deborah Rodriguez

ABOUT THIS BOOK

Soon after the fall of the Taliban, in 2001, Deborah Rodriguez went to Afghanistan as part of a group offering humanitarian aid to this war-torn nation. Surrounded by men and women whose skills–as doctors, nurses, and therapists–seemed eminently more practical than her own, Rodriguez, a hairdresser and mother of two from Michigan, despaired of being of any real use. Yet she soon found she had a gift for befriending Afghans, and once her profession became known she was eagerly sought out by Westerners desperate for a good haircut and by Afghan women, who have a long and proud tradition of running their own beauty salons. Thus an idea was born.

I’m reading the last of my unread Carol Goodman books, The Sonnet Lover. (She’s one of my favorite authors and I’ve read all of her works so far.)

About the book: Did Shakespeare pen a series of passionate sonnets, unknown to modern scholarship, ardently praising a mysterious dark-haired beauty? This tantalizing question is raised in a letter to literature professor Rose Asher. But the letter’s author, Rose’s star pupil, is not telling. A troubled, enigmatic young man, he plunged to his death in front of the college’s entire faculty, an apparent suicide. Determined to find the truth, Rose journeys from New York to Italy, back to the magnificent Tuscan villa where as an undergraduate she first fell in love.

My current audio book is Night, by Elie Wiesel. It’s part of a trilogy.

Amazon.com Review
In Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel’s memoir Night, a scholarly, pious teenager is wracked with guilt at having survived the horror of the Holocaust and the genocidal campaign that consumed his family. His memories of the nightmare world of the death camps present him with an intolerable question: how can the God he once so fervently believed in have allowed these monstrous events to occur? There are no easy answers in this harrowing book, which probes life’s essential riddles with the lucid anguish only great literature achieves. It marks the crucial first step in Wiesel’s lifelong project to bear witness for those who died.

Today’s book is Against Medical Advice by James Patterson and Hal Friedman. Since it’s school vacation week, I hope to read a lot and plan to mix up the genres.

From the Jacket: One morning when he was almost five years old, Cory Freidman woke up with the uncontrollable urge to shake his head. From that day forward, his life became an agony of irrepressible tics and involuntary utterances. Cory embarked on a 13 year odyssey of medication upon medication, treatment upon treatment….

My newest read is Her Last Death: A Memoir by Susanna Sonnenberg. I got it from our school librarian and fellow booklover.  She’s been keeping my TBR pile stocked with the ones that she’s loved.

From the jacket:  Her Last Death begins as the phone rings early one morning in the Montana house where Susanna Sonnenberg lives with her husband and two young sons. Her aunt is calling to tell Susanna her mother is in a coma after a car accident. She might not live. Any daughter would rush the thousands of miles to her mother’s bedside. But Susanna cannot bring herself to go. Her courageous memoir explains why…

Since I’m back to school I have little to no time to read “for fun” right now. I’m swamped with getting my year underway and it’s also the beginning of the dreaded Alternate Assessment window which saps all of my time and energy.

I am managing to read little snippets of Educating Esme: Diary of a Teacher’s First Year by Esme Raji Codell when I get a few minutes to spare. Since it’s all diary entries, I can blast through a few at a time. This one is my “purse book” and travels with me.  (Recommended by my teaching partner, Syd )

* I just noticed when I linked to her site that she has written many more books and also has a blog.  I’ll be sure to check everything out!

I found this one, A Girl Named Zippy: Growing up in Mooreland, Indiana while browsing through the online audio books and the cover caught my eye. I’ve never read Haven Kimmel before so I’m giving it a try. This memoir is read by the author.