Hamilton Readalong: Chapters 1 - 5

 

 

I have to confess I was a bit nervous. I hadn't read anything by Chernow before, and a part of me thought that maybe Lin-Manuel had created a musical diamond from a coal sort of book. But I didn't need to worry. Even if I wasn't Hamilton obsessed, this is the kind of nonfiction I love.

Ron Chernow has done his research. It's really interesting to see the ways that the book and the musical diverge. For example, in the show, Hamilton meets his bffs Laurens, Mulligan, and Lafayette all at once. In real life, those meetings were quite spaced out. Even the best biographers can't uncover everything. There is a fair amount of "Hamilton and Laurens might have been in love" or "Hamilton either lied about his age or we are wrong about his birth year." Either way, I am learning new things on every page and doing that obnoxious thing where I read passages aloud to my husband.

This is evident in the musical too, but Chernow really delves into the ways Hamilton was a man made by both circumstance and personality. He happened to meet a lot of people who helped him out, but he kept impressing them by being so stinking smart and determined.

Also, a million kudos to Chernow for starting the book with Eliza. It is inspired for AHam and Eliza to have almost equal footing in the musical, but Chernow gets original credit for knowing how awesome she is.

Favorite line so far? "He had all the magnetic power of a mysterious foreigner and soon made his first friend: a fashionable tailor with the splendid name of Hercules Mulligan." Why, yes it is.  

Thank you, Miss Alice, for this most excellent readalong. On to the next chapters!

Wednesdays with David: The Map to Everywhere & City of Thirst

              

The stories: Fin is a young thief who wants to use the map to find his mother. Marrill is a girl stranded on the pirate stream, desperate to use the map to get back home. They reluctantly team up with a wizard to find the pieces of the map. But they aren't the only ones who want it...

In the sequel, the waters of the pirate stream are touching Marrill's world again, so she knows it is time for another adventure. This time, her babysitter tags along and they join with Fin and their other friends to travel to Monerva, where a wish machine might just be what they need to save the day.

Thoughts from David: I think that both books have a lot of magic in them. They are just unbelievable. And the main characters (named Fin and Marrill) are . just. CRAZY AWESOME! Don't let this ship set sail without you!

Fin is a master thief and Marrill is a regular girl. Fin's mom is missing and Marrill's is real sick. So they are alike and different a lot. They go to the pirate stream,the shattered archipelago, the monervean city, and the burning plains, as they search for the map to everywhere!  David OVER THE MOON AND OUT! transmission sent.


The Map to Everywhere
By Carrie Ryan and John Parke Davis
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers November 2014
448 pages
Read via Netgalley
Recommended for readers between 8 -12

City of Thirst
By Carrie Ryan and John Parke Davis
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers October 2015
400  pages
From our shelves

Happy reading!

Review: Bonhoeffer

Dietrich Bonhoeffer is a pastor and writer known for important Christian works such as Discipleship and Ethics. He is also one of the people who worked from within Germany to fight the Third Reich and take Hitler out of power, by any means necessary. How did a man of faith reconcile the possibility of murder? What drove this man to risk everything to fight for the Germany he loved?

This book is more than 500 pages long. While it might seem intimidating, the talented Eric Metaxas uses every paragraph to bring Dietrich Bonhoeffer to life and convey the difficult choices that Germans faced during the rise and rule of the Nazis. He starts at the beginning of Bonhoeffer's life and reveals the exact combination that made him into the man he became - a religious mother, a wealthy and educated family, and family members who worked for the government and had inside information.

Bonhoeffer was still coming up through the ranks of seminary and ministry as Hitler rose to power, but he knew from the outset that their new leader could not be trusted and that bad things were on the horizon. He was a man who loved Germany as a nation and was willing to fight for the country he had grown up in. Hitler was aware of the potential for the church to cause trouble, so he tried to control it early on by creating a national church that was controlled by his appointee. Bonhoeffer was appalled by the people who called themselves followers of Christ but would not protest the way that their fellow Germans were being treated by the Third Reich. Along with many other pastors, he split from the national church and formed the Confessing Church.

One of Bonhoeffer's great tasks was making connections with pastors and leaders outside of Germany. There were many Germans who understood the importance of overthrowing Hitler, but they wanted to make sure they would have the support of other nations and that they and their countrymen would not be punished for sins they had not committed. Unfortunately, this met with little success and many men in the government who might have taken great risks didn't, choosing instead to look out for their own safety and security.

Perhaps the most frustrating thing about Bonhoeffer's story is the futility of it all. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was arrested not for plotting against Hitler, but for redirecting some money to help Jewish refugees. He was executed by the Nazis just a few weeks before the end of the war. The fact that he came so close to surviving the war and going on to write new works, marry his fiance, and fight other injustices is heartbreaking.

In Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy, readers receive perhaps the best look at Bonhoeffer they are likely to get outside of his own writing. Mr. Metaxas presents a man who was consistently evolving and learning, but also had the conviction to fight and die for his belief in what was right.

Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy
By Eric Metaxas
Thomas Nelson Publishers August 2011
608 pages
Borrowed from my father

It's Monday and I'm back!!

Hi guys! I'm back! I took a Christmas/New Year's break but now I am back and ready to talk books.

Here is what I've read in the past two weeks or so:

          

          

This week, I will be finishing up When Women Were Birds and I am joining the Alexander Hamilton read-along over at Reading Rambo!

                


What are you reading this week?

The First Book of 2016

Hi friends, I'm just popping in for a minute to join up with Sheila to tell you about our first books of the year!

I'm beginning with When Women Were Birds, which has been sitting on my bookshelf for a year or two. I've heard very high praise for this book about relationships and what it means to have a voice.

The kids wanted to join in too, so here they are with the first books they read in 2016!

Happy New Year, friends! I will be back on Monday with a full week of books reviews and a 2015 wrap-up post.

A Month of Faves: Books on My Winter Reading List

Today, we are discussing the books we hope to read during this long winter hibernation. Hop on over to Estella's Revenge, Traveling with T, or Girlxoxo to see what other bloggers have on their lists!

Fiction:

Twain's End imagines the ups and downs of the relationship between Mark Twain and his longtime secretary, Isabel Lyon.

Ten Thousand Skies Above You is the sequel to A Thousand Pieces of You, which I loved. Both books are about the adventures Marguerite has with the Firebird, an invention of her parents that allows the user to travel to other dimensions.

The Song of Hartgrove Hall has dual timelines, music, and WWII. I am all in!

        

Non-fiction:

The Witches covers a terrifying and fascinating moment in history and Schiff is one of the best history writers.

The Giveness of Things is a collection of essays by Marilynne Robinson. Need we say more?

Excellent Daughters tells the stories of women in Arab countries who are seeking their own education, careers, and choices.

         

Backlist: 

The Snow Child is about a snow child that comes to life for a childless couple in Alaska. Perfect for winter, right?

We Have Always Lived in the Castle has been on my woefully neglected Classics Club list for a while. It's supposed to be spooky and great!

Cinnamon and Gunpowder is a retelling of Scherezade where the prince is a female pirate. Yes, please!

While Christmas shopping for other people, I happened to pick up The Golem and the Jinni for myself. I've been meaning to read it since it came out in 2013!

       

What is on your winter reading list? 

It's Monday and I am a tired lady

This week. It's been crazy. Shopping and baking and cleaning, oh my. I am happy to report that come hell or high water or insane days, I will still be reading. 

I'm finding myself way behind reviews, so I'm trying to fit a bunch in before I go on a break around Christmas. This week, I reviewed Sweet Tooth, Harriet Wolf's Seventh Book of Wonders, We Never Asked For Wings, and Accidental Saints. I have some posts scheduled for the next few days, and then I plan to take a blog break until 2016.

In the past few days, I read the lovely Emily, Alone. Sometimes quieter books are slow and a little boring. This is definitely not the case here. I intended to read Sara Bareilles' memoir after that, but I messed up Netgalley again. When you download a book to Kindle, you get to keep it past its expiration date. This does not seem to be the case for books read as PDFs. I still plan to read the book, but I'm going to have to go get it from the library.

In the meantime, I sped through The Wrath and the Dawn in one glorious day. I love anything that references One Thousand And One Nights, so this was right up my alley. I snuck in The Mysterious Benedict Society just under the wire this weekend. Who knew you could get so much reading done in the kitchen, while waiting for something to finish on the stove or in the oven?

              

Next up is Kitchens of the Great Midwest. After that, I plan to read the much-loved Fates and Furies before it has to go back to the library.

              

I'm off to make some rice pudding and Christmas cookies. What are you reading this week?