The Dog Master by W.Bruce Cameron

The Dog Master by W.Bruce Cameron

If you like dogs and a good story, this is the book for you.
It tells the fictional story of how the first wolf just might have been introduced to the first human in order to form  a new species, the dog.
It takes place in the Paleolithic age, about 30,000 years ago when a variety of different tribes were roaming the earth. It was a time when man lived solely by hunting and gathering . It was also a time of the beginning of the ice age and food resources were  in short supply so competition for food was great.
That is setting the stage for the novel.
The plot of the book tells the story  a young deformed man, Mal of the Kindred tribe who befriends a dying mother wolf and her litter of pups and of his experiences within his tribe and with other tribes, both friendly and not so friendly. Mal,  after he is thrown out of his tribe, gradually  trains the young wolf pup, that he has saved, to become his helper.
 The book is well researched and it certainly could have happened this way that "wolf" became "dog".
It is a good story.
I really enjoyed it.

Henna House by Nomi Eve

Henna House by Nomi Eve

I know virtually nothing about the Arabian Peninsula in the 20th century and even less about the practice of henna decorations so when I picked up this book at the library, I knew I was in for an interesting read  .I certainly was not disappointed. What I didn't know was that the book would have a great story as well.
It tells the story of Adela, a young Yemenite Jewess who lives with her parents in an area of yemen controlled by Muslims in the 1920s. They live  as 2nd class citizens in the area and although managing to make a simple living, always in fear. Adela, at the start of the story is only 9years old and  is especially fearful that she will be taken away and forcefully adopted by a Muslim family. Her mother is very strict and will not let her join in the local ritual custom of decorating her body with henna. This changes when her aunt, uncle and cousins  from Aden  then a British protectorate move to live with them. Her aunt is a skilled henna artist. The family story is fully of the history and traditions of the time as well as the eventual passage of the family to the new state of Israel.
It is also a love story and a tale of interfamily relationships, hardships and held my interest right through the book.
A most interesting book, well worth reading,

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

A great book written by a Pulitzer Prize novelist is an epic tale of a girl/boy,- a hermaphrodite who grows up in a Greek immigrant family that settle in Detroit.
Calliope is the teller of the tale and she tells the tale with stories within her own personal story of her Greek family.
 It is full of drama, starting with the fleeing of her grandparents from Smyrna  and then continues with the interesting tales of the whole family as they settle, prosper and try to understand the ways of American life through the 20thcentury. 
During the book, Calliope , later Cal, her masculine persona, tells of her family background and the mixed genetics which has resulted in her being born as a hermaphrodite. Unfortunately,  Callie,  or her family have no idea or understanding of the problems she will encounter or face .
It is a multifaceted book  that touches not only on biology and science  but on the love and emotional aspect of immigrant and family life and the history of a large city in America.
Not a book you can read quickly but a book that holds your interest and is a real page -turner.

The Martian by Andy Weir

The Martian by Andy Weir

This is an excellent suspense novel  very similar to a modern day space version of "Robinson Crusoe". It is very well written and  very readable although not always understood completely by a non-scientific non -technical person like me. It certainly holds your attention and is in the category" can't put down until completely read !!"

"The Martian" is the name Mark Watney, a botanist astronomer has given himself when he is inadvertently left on Mars, when the rest of his team leave to return to the mother ship on the voyage back to earth. The crew and NASA think he has died.

Mark, has not died and with considerable ingenuity and using his  technical and botanist know-how manages to cope with his situation by using the left- behind items of the space venture .He also manages to start communications again to let NASA and the world know he is alive but will run out of food after so many days. Even in this dire situation he seems to keep his wits about him and even at times seems to be enjoying the challenge.He writes a daily log and it is well documented and even funny.
So will he be rescued or can he even be rescued?
This book will appeal to not only people who like suspense novels, but it is loaded with technical expertise and so anyone interested in space travel will find it very interesting.
I am usually not interested in books about space but this one certainly held my interest. 
I certainly recommend it

The Global War on Morris by Steve Israel

The Global War on Morris by Steve Israel

A most entertaining book if you have an interest in government and the ludicrous complexity of the bureaucracy that it supports. 
It is entertaining as it is a satirical, humorous book written by a congressman about a typical American family and how they get drawn into  the "war on terror".
Morris is an unassuming, middle-class American living a quiet placid life in suburban USA. He is a salesman for a pharmaceutical company. 
He has a dalliance with a receptionist at one of the companies he visits. In an attempt to hide his misadventure from his  wife Rona, he inadvertently gets mixed up with a drug criminal who is under observation from homeland security and at least 2 other government agencies.  Each agency doesn't know about the other agencies activities and life quickly becomes very complicated for everyone concerned.
The whole situation gets even more convoluted  when Rona feels sorry for a young Arab pool attendant and his friends in Florida and decides she is going to help them with counselling, her profession.
 Unfortunately for Morris and Rona, the young Arabs  really are terrorists just waiting for their turn at "going to paradise".
The plot thickens and if you read on through many layers of confusion and misinterpretation by all the agencies, eventually you will then find out if  Morris and Rona will ever get their old life  back.

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver.

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver.

This is a book I picked up at a book sale and it has been on my bookshelf for months if not years! Flicking through the pages I had picked it up one or two times previously but never got round to reading it. It didn’t look too interesting.

Then one evening I was going to bed and I always read last thing in bed and hadn’t a book that I was reading, so I picked up this older book.( pub. 1998)

Well, what a surprise it was! I got hooked pretty quickly on the plot line and in fact found it a very interesting book. Just one of those books you can’t put down.

Here is a start to get you interested.

In 1958, a very devout, evangelistic, Baptist preacher decides his calling is to be a missionary so he takes his wife and 4 daughters to the Belgian Congo.They are all quite unprepared for this adventure. The girls don’t particularly want to go and even the mother is apprehensive but Father say so and so of course , that's what happens.

They eventually arrive and find the small amount of modern things they have bought with them are not much help in the jungle. They have to learn to adjust to a new land, new food, and a new language. Father knows best  but isn’t learning to adapt as well as his young daughters. Mother quickly resents being placed into this setting and having to work so hard and struggle with day to day living. What follows in the book is the story of their lives in the three following decades  plus the events of historical importance with the split up of the Belgium Congo to become independant and all the political disturbances that occurred. The family eventually all decide to go their own way but the telling of their story is fascinating and well told.

it was well worth reading.

The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd

The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd

Written by the same author who wrote the “Secret Life of Bees’ , I found this a very engrossing and interesting book.

It is a fictionalized story  based on the historical lives and facts of the 2 Grimky sisters,Sarah and Abilene ( Nina) who were both  very involved in both the abolition of slavery and the rights of women. This came at a time and place , Charleston in the early 1800s, when for 2 upper class white ladies, this was totally “not the correct thing to do”.

It might sound from this a boring book with lots of dull facts but due to the skill of the author, she has wound true facts and even characters into a story which grips you and makes you want to carry on reading about 2 very courageous and intelligent women and the hardship they faced to fulfill their destiny.

Tales of the dreadful life that slaves lived in those days is also well told through the eyes of the household slaves and especially Hetty, known by her slave name “Handful” who is the slave given to Sarah on her birthday.

A good book to read. 

I fully recommend it.