Book Reviews: How to Live, Song for a Whale

How to Live: Or a Life of Montaigne: In One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer by Sarah Bakewell

Published: February 16, 2010 by Chatto & Windus

Genre: Biography, Philosophy, History, Self-help

Format: Hardcover, 387 pages, own
Rating: 4 stars

My friend Stacie and I have an ongoing philosophy book club. She moved away a year ago and this is a way we can stay connected while we are far apart. 

Bakewell enjoyed writing about Montaigne and all his quirks. He was one of the first people to truly write about the self in all its boring detail. And not so boring. I loved getting to know his quirks and the history of France around this time. It was a troubled time, indeed. He inspired me to just keep writing and not worrying about if it's boring or not. Just living means everyone has something to write.

Song for a Whale by Lynne Kelly

Published: February 5, 2019 by Delacorte Press

Genre: Middle grade, contemporary fiction

Format: Hardcover, 303 pages, library

Rating: 5 stars

This is an adorable book. Yes adorable and thought-provoking. Iris is deaf and her parents are forcing her to attend a school that has no deaf children. She feels alone and defeated. But she soon learns about a whale that sings a song that no other whales can hear. She decides to make a song for this lonely whale and she is determined to play it for him.  She joins her grandmother on a cruise in order to find this whale and find another lonely soul.

Go read it.

American Spy by Lauren Wilkinson

Published: February 12, 2019 by Random House

Genre: Historical fiction, cold war

Rating: 3 stars

I liked it. But I didn't love it. It was a bit rough as a first novel. She writes in the form of a very long letter to her sons. It ended up making the overall story a little less dramatic and it sometimes took me out of the story.

I really enjoyed the overall plot, though. Marie Mitchell's story about her sister Helene and her mother leaving them while she was very young, and her treatment as a black woman in the FBI in the 80s was all interesting. I didn't buy her being a spy very well and I didn't really like the "love" story between her and Sankara. I feel like if she had just told the story in real time rather than afterwards as a letter to her sons, it would have been a more gripping and interesting story. It was a very short novel and thus I feel she had to cut a lot out and just kind of move the story along when she needed to and having it as a letter would make that very easy.

Overall, a very interesting story and I will pick up the next book by Wilkinson and I hope the writing and story development will be tighter.

Argos: The Story of Odysseus as Told by His Loyal Dog by Ralph Hardy

Published: May 31, 2016 by HarperCollins

Genre: Middle grade, history, fantasy

Rating: 3 stars

Argos tells Odysseus' story. He's not with him the whole time so he must get snippets from other creatures who meet Odysseus and his crew along the way. So sometimes the story-telling was a bit forced. Argos was stiff and the writing was a bit stodgy, but it's a fun way to get the story for a younger audience. 

The Widows of Malabar Hill by Sujata Massey

Published: January 9, 2018 by Soho Press

Literary Awards: Mary Higgins Clark Award, Agatha Award for Best Historical Novel, Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Mystery & Thriller

Genre: Mystery, Historical fiction

Rating: 4 stars

I really enjoyed this historical mystery during the 1920s of India. So many cultural and historical things to learn and enjoy. Massey never once makes it feel like an info dump. I've read books where you can tell the author is straining the story in order to tell you how much useless info she learned from a book somewhere about the time period she's writing about. All the information and world and characters feel organic. You feel like you could be back there experiencing it all. 

Perveen Mistry is the only female lawyer in the area working for her father's firm. She can't even practice in court legally. But when the sequestered widows of Malabar Hill need to speak with someone and the only one they can speak with is Perveen...well, she becomes entangled in a murder and a mystery that leaves her in peril. 

Massey also shares Perveen's history. We go back in time until it all comes together with the present. I'm excited to continue with the rest of the series.