Sanctuary

This book follows the character Temple Drake.  The book is about sex slavery, rape, and murder.  In many ways, it is more of a book covering topics of today instead of the 30’s.  William Faulkner isn’t the easiest author to read.  I gave up The Sound and the Fury.  None of the characters are redeemable in this book but I kept reading anyway.  There was a movie with Miriam Hopkins called The Story of Temple Drake.  Leonard Maltin gave it a high rating.  For some reason, it’s not available.  Neither is the Lee Remick version called Sanctuary.  I wish these were available.  When you read a book you usually want to see the movie of it and this wasn’t possible for me concerning both movies.

The Darkest Child

This was a pretty impressive debut, the only book by Delores Phillips although she was in the works of writing a sequel before she died.  This book is about Tangy Mae, a brilliant African American girl who wants to get out of the family and town that entrap her.  Tangy's mother is pretty messed up, having no problems with pimping Tangy out.  Tangy gets the offer of going to a white school but her mother is set against it.  Tangy is the only one in her family who is capable of getting a high school diploma.  Tangy also experiences other problems like her crush on her sister Martha Jean's husband.  The edition I got was around 387 pages but it went by pretty quickly.  

I'll give you the sun

I'm just starting to get into young adult fiction.  I used to be snobby about not calling it literature.  Then I read John Green and realized I was wrong.  It took me a while to get into the book but when I did it was a page-turner.  It's about twins, a girl and a boy called Jude and Noah.  They've drifted apart.  Both are artists and enrolling at an arts high school called CSA.  Noah is gay and has a crush on a boy named Brian.  The sister tries to get an established artist to help her with sculpturing.  The plot jumps from the current time and three years ago.  Eventually, everything even discovering more about their dead mother, collide. It was a fast read and won a few deserved awards.

Kierkegaard A Single Life

This was a good biography by Stephen Backhouse.  I used to read a bit of philosophy when I was a teenager but what I most enjoyed was reading biographies about them.  These philosophers were usually eccentrics.  I haven't read anything on philosophy for more than ten years.  However watching the first two seasons of "The Good Place" made me want to pick them up again so I got this.  Kierkegaard was a Christian philosopher.  More than twenty pages of the book goes into details on each of his specific works.  You get to read about the love of his life Regine, who he shafted.  (The book says incompatibility but I think Kierkegaard being scared had something to do with it.)  I also learned about how Kierkegaard criticized many thinkers of his day, most later forgotten.  I didn't know this side of him so I learned something.

Firefly Hollow

This book didn't rock my world but it was cute.  It's about a vole, cricket, and a firefly.  The cricket wants to be a catcher for baseball.  The firefly wants to fly to the moon.  The cricket and the firefly become friends with a human boy who is currently dealing with his friend's death.  They are amazed to become friends with the boy despite the misconceptions about the "giant" creatures.  They are able to somewhat fulfill their dreams.  The boy is able to move on with his life.  It's a good book for kids to read because it teaches about the value of friendship.  

Extraordinary Adventures

I picked this up randomly at the library.  It said it was done by the author of “Big Fish” and that was a movie done by Tim Burton in recent years that I thought was ok.  A man in his 30’s gets a phone call about a free vacation.  The catch is you have to watch a timeshare presentation.  Only the operator makes it mandatory that he bring a companion with him. The character Edsel has never been in a relationship so this sounds hard for him.  Only within the next few weeks, he manages to get three women interested in him.  They are an older woman from his apartment complex Coco, an eccentric woman from work Sheila, and a sassy policewoman.  There are two subplots about a drug-dealing neighbor and his mother who is losing it.  This book didn’t change my world but it was cute.  I was happy with who he ended up with.  

Iris

This was an ok biography about Iris Murdoch written by her husband.  The one thing that is clear about this book is that John Bayley loved his wife.  He talks about her Alzheimer's and her writing.  He even discusses her unfaithfulness without getting mad about it.  I’ve read a couple of books by her and I love her writing especially “The Bell.”  I’m going to read another biography about her since I want to learn more about her writing process. Also, this doesn’t discuss her childhood at all.  However, I feel like I got to learn more about Iris so it was worth the read.