Not as many books as I was hoping to finish this month, but a really good mix of subjects and genres. Check them out:
Family of Spies - Christine Kuehn - nonfiction - five stars - This was a really interesting book. When a screenwriter contacted Kuehn about her family's story, she was horrified to learn that her grandparents and aunt/uncles were Nazi spies/supporters. It takes her. many years to want to research and then get the full story of her family. They were recruited in Germany to work with/for the Japanese, and then sent to Hawaii, where they played a key role in gathering intelligence for the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The crazy thing is that they really were not punished for their roles in the attack, ended up just getting deported back to Germany. Also sadly Kuehn's father, who was born in the US and had no knowledge of his parents and siblings activities essentially lost his family. He served for the US during the war, and held onto the secret until very late in life when confronted by his daughter.
The Love Elixir of Augusta Stern - Lynda Cohen Loigman - fiction - five stars - Augusta Stern has finally retired and moved to a retirement community in Florida. Who else lives there? Irving Rivkin, the boy who broke her heart years ago. The book jumps back and forth between the past and the present as you find out what went wrong all those years ago. It's a really cute story and I loved all the characters. Quick, fun read.
Yes Please - Amy Poehler - memoir - five stars - This was my audiobook for the month. It was a fun, listen/read. I really enjoy Poehler, and her wit comes through in the audiobook which she narrates, along with some audio cameos from others in the business. It was interesting to hear how Poehler started out, and all the other things she has done. I was really only familiar with her television career, so the other stuff was pretty interesting. Comedy is apparently a pretty collegial/small world, so it was interesting to see how her life/career has intersected with others. I definitely recommend listening to this one vs reading.
Buckeye - Patrick Ryan - fiction - four stars - There was so much hype around this book that maybe I had unrealistic expectations for it. It was good, but not as amazing as I had expected. It's the story of Cal and Becky as well as their complicated relationship with Margaret and Felix and the couples' sons. The storyline follows them from childhood to adulthood/death. I found the book compelling as a read, moved through it quickly and it kept my attention, I just didn't really like the characters. This was one of those books where I got annoyed with them all, what they were and were not doing.
The Mademoiselle Alliance - Natasha Lester - historical fiction - five stars - The story of Marie-Madeleine Fourcade who ran the Alliance resistance network in France during WWII. It's a pretty amazing story. Fourcade took over Alliance network when the original leaders were caught. Alliance was working with MI6, and she was known to them initially only by her code name. Her gender was not revealed to them until she took one of the full moon flights back to Britain to strategize with them. While extremely inspiring, it's also extremely sad because of so many of the agents that you get to know in the book did not survive the war. Highly recommend.
We Are Legion (We Are Bob) (Bobiverse, #1) - Dennis E. Taylor - science fiction - four stars - I hadn't read a science fiction book in a while, and this one got really good reviews, so I thought I would try it, and I'm glad I did. It's about an extremely smart guy named Bob who has contracted for his brain/'corpsicle' to be preserved after he dies so he can essentially be brought back to life once they have figured out the tech to do that. A hundred years later, he wakes up to find that a lot has changed in the world. There are different countries/powers, and corpsicles no longer have rights. He's essentially been put into an interstellar probe looking for other habitable planets since the word is basically dying. He has the ability to reproduce/clone himself, so soon there are lots of different Bobs exploring the universe. There are also other probes from other countries too, and most of them are not friendly. It's a very clever premise. I really liked Bob as well as his clones and the differences between them. This dragged a little bit in a few places, so a four, but definitely looking forward to reading the rest of this series.
Favorites this month were The Mademoiselle Alliance and The Love Elixir of Augusta Stern. What have you guys been reading?
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