Kyle Hepp

October 20, 2011

Since the last post about what books I had recently read, I’ve added a few more really good ones to the list. To be honest, now that high season has started, I’m not able to read quite as much. I was going through a book a day, but that has slowed down considerably to a more human pace of a book or two a week. I wanted to write down my recommendations of my favorites from the past couple of weeks and ask for more that are on your list. A lot of you recommended ones that I had already read and some didn’t sound quite enough like my style for me to want to give them a try, and some of them I just haven’t gotten to yet, but I actually did read quite a few that you all left in the comments, so thank you for that!

I re-read a couple favorites like Twilight, on the plane back from The U.S. when I underestimated how many booked I would need for the flight and ran out. Oops! I also revisited Glass Castle for book club, which I think is actually good enough that I’ll write it up here so in case you haven’t read it yet, you are motivated to get on that. It’s a great book!

So with no further ado, here are a few books that I enjoyed recently. I’m linking to them on Amazon under my affiliate link so if you do purchase any of them through it I’ll get a small commission. Thank you so much!

The Glass Castle: A Memoir by Jeannette Walls. I don’t think I’ve ever liked a memoir as much as this one. The Glass Castle is the story of a person who combines the two perfect elements of a memoir — an absolutely remarkable story and a brilliant way with words. Jeannette and her family lived in poverty, basically by her parents’ choice. It is belly laugh out loud funny at points, and then just as sad in the opposite extreme during the book as well. I love it. I think I’ve read it three or four times and it never gets old.

Even Silence Has an End: My Six Years of Captivity in the Colombian Jungle by Ingrid Betancourt. I simultaneously loved and hated this book. The story needs to be told. It’s about Ingrid Betancourt, a high society Colombian-French woman, who was candidate for the president of Colombia, when she was taken hostage and held for six years in the Colombian jungle by the FARC. Ingrid is probably the most annoying narrator ever to have told her own story in the written form (right up there with the writer of Eat Pray Love). She tries to make it sound like she was so brave and all her companions are wusses. She complains about their behavior and yet somehow completely justifies when she herself does the same thing. If she would just admit fault every now and again, I would have been much more sympathetic to her narration. That being said, the story is hideously fascinating. And it definitely made me want to read Out of Captivity: Surviving 1,967 Days in the Colombian Jungle by the three American prisoners that were with her in captivity, and Captive: 2,147 Days of Terror in the Colombian Jungle by Clara Rojas, the woman who was abducted along with Ingrid. In Even Silence Has an End Ingrid makes Clara sound like a completely crazy idiot (like, she literally makes this woman sound like she should be locked in a mental institution, and maybe she should, I don’t know, I haven’t read the book yet). Ingrid also makes references to one of the gringos sound kind of like he was her lover, and she makes the other gringo sound like a robotic, unfeeling human being. So I’d rather hear their perspectives as well rather than taking her word as the story. As completely self-absorbed and self-righteous as Ingrid comes across though, it really is a good book. She does an excellent job of describing the conditions that she lived in and the up and down emotional rollercoaster. I’m amazed that she made it out. Even though I knew how the story ended, I still began to feel a hopelessness for her towards the end of the book, and when she described the rescue, I cried tears of joy.

Oh, and I should mention, the English translation of this book is pretty bad. I’m not sure if the original English was French or Spanish, but many of the sayings were literally translated and either don’t make sense, or sound awkward.

But now I’m making the book sound way worse than it actually was. I think this would be a very good book club read just because it forces you to ask questions — how would I react if I were in this situation? How is it possible that people are being captured and treated like this in this day and age? Is the political stance taken on hostages in Colombia and abroad the correct one? How does life in captivity and under cruel conditions for six years change a person?

Committed: A Love Story by Elizabeth Gilbert. Aaaaand Elizabeth Gilbert redeems herself. I did not like Eat Pray Love. At all. I was very hesitant to read her second book, Committed, and only did so at the urging of a good friend and fellow book club member, who seems to have similar taste in reading as me. This book pleasantly surprised me. It gives a lot of good information on marriage, quite a bit of it surprising. The premise is that Elizabeth’s long time partner gets deported from the U.S. Both of them have a severe aversion to marriage, but since the U.S. Immigration officer tells them that’s the only way for them to be able to live in the U.S. they’re forced to reconsider their beliefs. Through it all, Elizabeth explores the why’s and how’s of marriage throughout the ages, and I found a lot of it really interesting.

Unbearable Lightness: A Story of Loss and Gain by Portia de Rossi. This book was beautiful. You could tell that it was written by someone who isn’t a professional author, but that worked — it made it seem more raw. The story is of Portia de Rossi’s struggle with her eating disorders and how she nearly starved herself to death, only to meet Ellen, come out of the closet as a lesbian, get healthy and get happy. In case you needed a reason to love Ellen more (impossible!) you can now fall in love with her wife too. The book is real and sad and I definitely enjoyed it.

How To Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carniege. This book is another good one for any business owner or company leader. It’s so much common sense. You read the advice and just think “Duh.” But it’s also a good refresher on what’s really important. And while it might be common sense, it’s not necessarily as easy to practice as it is to preach. If you’re not a people person, read this. If you are a people person, read this and get better. HTWFAIP was recommended to me by my friend Ken Kienow, a wedding photographer in San Luis Obispo. He’s a guy who values customer service above all else so when he said that this was a must-read, I believed him.

Cleopatra: A Life, by Stacy Schiff. I am enthralled by this book. It pieces together the facts about Cleopatra and undoes the the many (many, many, many) myths about her. Granted, nothing, is a sure thing. She lived in a time before lives were blogged or even booked, and there are many things about her life that we’ll never know. I like that there’s still some intrigue. In fact, one thing I love about the book is that the author, if she’s unsure of what really happened, will simply say, here are the two historical accounts, this one makes more sense to me because _____, and then she lets you decide. But my favorite thing about this book was that it simply shows a powerful woman in history painted in a good and as-truthful-as-possible light — not, ohhhh, she was a seductress, lying, sleeping her way to the top bitch — just this is how she was and how she had to be to do what she had to do back in Alexandrian times to maintain her throne. I think that’s something that men really don’t, and probably never will understand. Men have always had books/movies/songs showing their gender in a powerful and/or positive light, whereas women aren’t often the lead of anything but bad chic lit. To be fair, I enjoy my share of chic lit, but as a female, I like to see characters (especially when they’re real) that are strong, leaders, politically smart (note: which doesn’t have to equate to bitch), and not crying over a man. Cleopatra had her flaws for sure, but that doesn’t change the fact that she was ambitious and intelligent and not at all what I had thought she was prior to reading this book.

Other books I read that were also fun but not quite worthy of a full write up: Bloodlines by Richelle Mead (a vampire/other wordly creatures story — like Twilight, but well written), Earthly Joys: A Novel and Virgin Earth: A Novel by Phillippa Gregory (not as good as all the Tudor era books, but still great if you like her), The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood (read this one for book club and it was kind of weird but made me think).

I’d happily take anymore good book recommendations that you might have! Leave them in the comments. The comments on these posts have become my best source when I’m looking for fresh material to buy for my Kindle!