Unreviewed Books

I’ve been reading a ton of manga lately because life has done what life does, and it lifed. Manga has been the easiest for me to focus on right now, so most of these unreviewed books are just that.

---

Dream Work, Mary Oliver
Poetry
Goodreads, Amazon, Bookshop, B&N

This was a quick read for me, I give it 4 stars.

About the Book:
Dream Work, a collection of forty-five poems, follows Mary Oliver’s Pulitzer Prize-winning poetry volume American Primitive. The deep perceptual awareness on display in that collection is all the more radiant and steadfast here. With this new collection, Oliver has turned her attention to the solitary and difficult labors of the spirit–to accepting the truth about one’s personal world, and to valuing the triumphs while transcending the fail­ures of human relationships.
 
Oliver brings grace and empathy to the painful legacies of history, whether by way of inheritance–as in her poem about the Holocaust–-or through a glimpse into the realities of present–as in her poem about an injured boy begging in the streets of Indonesia. And yet, Oliver’s willingness to find light, humanity, and joy continues, deepened by self-awareness, by experience, and by choice.

Jujutsu Kaisen, Vol. 1 and Vol 2, Gege Akutami
Manga/Fantasy
Vol 1: Goodreads, Amazon, Bookshop, B&N
Vol 2: Goodreads, Amazon, B&N

I loved both of these and gave them 5 stars.

About the Books

Vol 1:
Although Yuji Itadori looks like your average teenager, his immense physical strength is something to behold! Every sports club wants him to join, but Itadori would rather hang out with the school outcasts in the Occult Research Club. One day, the club manages to get their hands on a sealed cursed object. Little do they know the terror they’ll unleash when they break the seal…

Vol 2:
When a cursed womb appears at a detention facility, Jujutsu High dispatches Itadori and the other first-years to handle the situation. However, the curse they encounter is far stronger than they ever expected! Itadori and friends now have two options: run and maybe live, or fight and die. While they are distracted, powerful curses with mysterious designs on Jujutsu High and Satoru Gojo are gathering…

East of Eden, John Steinbeck
Classics/Literary Fiction
Goodreads, Amazon, Bookshop, B&N

This is a reread, I think the 5th or 6th, and I still give it 5 stars. I noted this quote:
“This time last year I would have run to Sam Hamilton to talk.” “Maybe both of us have got a piece of him,” said Lee. “Maybe that’s what immortality is.”

About the Book
In his journal, Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck called East of Eden the first book, and indeed it has the primordial power and simplicity of myth. Set in the rich farmland of California’s Salinas Valley, this sprawling and often brutal novel follows the intertwined destinies of two families–the Trasks and the Hamiltons–whose generations helplessly reenact the fall of Adam and Eve and the poisonous rivalry of Cain and Abel. The masterpiece of Steinbeck’s later years, East of Eden is a work in which Steinbeck created his most mesmerizing characters and explored his most enduring themes: the mystery of identity, the inexplicability of love, and the murderous consequences of love’s absence. Adapted for the 1955 film directed by Elia Kazan introducing James Dean, and read by thousands as the book that brought Oprah’s Book Club back, East of Eden has remained vitally present in American culture for over half a century.

The God Equation, Michio Kaku
Science/Non-Fiction
Goodreads, Amazon, Bookshop, B&N

I wrote a few words down in response to this book, but I wouldn’t consider it a review. Readers of my blog know I’m a fan of theoretical physics, and I adore Kaku and how he relates his knowledge to readers. I give this 4-stars.

About the Book:
When Newton discovered the law of gravity, he unified the rules governing the heavens and the Earth. Since then, physicists have been placing new forces into ever-grander theories.
 
But perhaps the ultimate challenge is achieving a monumental synthesis of the two remaining theories—relativity and the quantum theory. This would be the crowning achievement of science, a profound merging of all the forces of nature into one beautiful, magnificent equation to unlock the deepest mysteries in science: What happened before the Big Bang? What lies on the other side of a black hole? Are there other universes and dimensions? Is time travel possible? Why are we here?
 
Kaku also explains the intense controversy swirling around this theory, with Nobel laureates taking opposite sides on this vital question. It is a captivating, gripping story; what’s at stake is nothing less than our conception of the universe.
 
Written with Kaku’s trademark enthusiasm and clarity, this epic and engaging journey is the story of The God Equation.

Millennium Snow, Vol 1 and 2, Bisco Hatori
Manga/Paranormal/Romance
Vol 1: Goodreads, Amazon, Bookshop, B&N
Vol 2: Goodreads, Amazon, Bookshop, B&N

These 4 part books are written by the author of Ouran Host Club which I’ve also been reading, so I wanted to give them a try. I give them both 4 stars.

About the Books

Vol 1:
17-year-old Chiyuki Matsuoka was born with heart problems, and her doctors say she won’t live to see the next snow. Touya is an 18-year-old vampire who hates blood and refuses to make the traditional partnership with a human, whose life-giving blood would keep them both alive for a thousand years. Can Chiyuki teach Touya to feel a passion for life, even as her own is ending?

Vol 2:
Seventeen-year-old Chiyuki Matsuoka was born with heart problems, and her doctors say she won’t live to see the next snow. Toya is an 18-year-old vampire who hates blood and refuses to make the traditional partnership with a human, whose life-giving blood would keep them both alive for a thousand years.

Now that her bond with Toya has healed her heart, Chiyuki wants to live her life to the fullest. What she doesn’t know is that Toya has refused to make the full partnership with her. He doesn’t want to doom her to a thousand years of life. Chiyuki swore to Toya that she would never leave him alone, but is that a promise she’ll be able to keep?

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, Dee Brown
History/Non-Fiction
Goodreads, Amazon, Bookshop, B&N

This is a reread. I read it when I was younger and am working my way through books that are sitting on my shelf. I give this book 5-stars.

About the Book:
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee is Dee Brown’s eloquent, fully documented account of the systematic destruction of the American Indian during the second half of the nineteenth century. A national bestseller in hardcover for more than a year after its initial publication, it has sold almost four million copies and has been translated into seventeen languages. For this elegant thirtieth-anniversary edition—published in both hardcover and paperback—Brown has contributed an incisive new preface.

Using council records, autobiographies, and firsthand descriptions, Brown allows the great chiefs and warriors of the Dakota, Ute, Sioux, Cheyenne, and other tribes to tell us in their own words of the battles, massacres, and broken treaties that finally left them demoralized and defeated. A unique and disturbing narrative told with force and clarity, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee changed forever our vision of how the West was really won.

---

So that’s what I’ve been up to over the last month when I haven’t had the words to review some books. Do you read Manga or Non-Fiction? I only read non-fiction occasionally, but it makes a good break in reading patterns.