Welcome to the Sunday Salon where bloggers share their reading each week. Visit The Sunday Post hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer.
The zinnias in the backyard are hanging on and roses are still blooming on two bushes. It's been an on-again off-again kind of autumn, warm some days and cold on others. I expect that it will get cold for good this week.
My Halloween pumpkin outside got eaten and the neighbor's pumpkins have also become feasts for the squirrels. I heard that spraying polyurethane on the pumpkins will keep critters from gnawing on them.
No books in my mailbox last week, but I got some goodies from the library.
The Making of Asian America: A History by Erika Lee, published September 1, 2015 by Simon and Schuster
I am finding lots of interesting facts. One is that the first Asian immigrants came by way of Spanish galleons sailing from Manila to Acapulco over 250 years, starting in the sixteenth century. The Asians were crew members from various countries on the ships; over the years some of them stayed in the Americas.
The other interesting fact is that Asian migration from their countries came about primarily as a result of European and American contact and interest in the countries, for trade or labor and also through conquest or war - in China, Japan, Korea, India and various Southeast Asian countries. Fascinating stuff, and I am only in the first few chapters.
The Feast of the Goat: A Novel by Mario Vargas Llosa, published November 13, 2001.
I read and enjoyed this Peruvian Nobel-prizewinning author's most recent book, The Discreet Hero, and decided to try more of his work. I have just started this novel about a woman's experiences during the rule of the dictator Rafael Trujillo in the Dominican Republic.
Book description: Urania Cabral returns to her native Dominican Republic -- and finds herself reliving the events of 1961, when the capital was still called Trujillo City and one old man terrorized a nation of three million. Rafael Trujillo, the depraved, ailing dictator whom Dominicans called the Goat, controls his inner circle (including Urania's father, a secretary of state now in disgrace) with a combination of violence and blackmail. In Trujillo's gaudy palace, treachery and cowardice have become a way of life. But Trujillo's grasp is slipping. There is a conspiracy against him, and a Machiavellian revolution is already under way that will have bloody consequences of its own.
I am still reading two interesting nonfiction books -
Hubris: the Tragedy of War in the Twentieth Century by Alistair Horne and
The Evolution of Everything: How New Ideas Emerge by Matt Ridley
After my nonfiction reading kick, I will get back to reading more novels. I've found a few on my shelf that I want to tackle.
Have you read any nonfiction recently?
The zinnias in the backyard are hanging on and roses are still blooming on two bushes. It's been an on-again off-again kind of autumn, warm some days and cold on others. I expect that it will get cold for good this week.
My Halloween pumpkin outside got eaten and the neighbor's pumpkins have also become feasts for the squirrels. I heard that spraying polyurethane on the pumpkins will keep critters from gnawing on them.
No books in my mailbox last week, but I got some goodies from the library.
I am finding lots of interesting facts. One is that the first Asian immigrants came by way of Spanish galleons sailing from Manila to Acapulco over 250 years, starting in the sixteenth century. The Asians were crew members from various countries on the ships; over the years some of them stayed in the Americas.
The other interesting fact is that Asian migration from their countries came about primarily as a result of European and American contact and interest in the countries, for trade or labor and also through conquest or war - in China, Japan, Korea, India and various Southeast Asian countries. Fascinating stuff, and I am only in the first few chapters.
I read and enjoyed this Peruvian Nobel-prizewinning author's most recent book, The Discreet Hero, and decided to try more of his work. I have just started this novel about a woman's experiences during the rule of the dictator Rafael Trujillo in the Dominican Republic.
Book description: Urania Cabral returns to her native Dominican Republic -- and finds herself reliving the events of 1961, when the capital was still called Trujillo City and one old man terrorized a nation of three million. Rafael Trujillo, the depraved, ailing dictator whom Dominicans called the Goat, controls his inner circle (including Urania's father, a secretary of state now in disgrace) with a combination of violence and blackmail. In Trujillo's gaudy palace, treachery and cowardice have become a way of life. But Trujillo's grasp is slipping. There is a conspiracy against him, and a Machiavellian revolution is already under way that will have bloody consequences of its own.
I am still reading two interesting nonfiction books -
Hubris: the Tragedy of War in the Twentieth Century by Alistair Horne and
The Evolution of Everything: How New Ideas Emerge by Matt Ridley
After my nonfiction reading kick, I will get back to reading more novels. I've found a few on my shelf that I want to tackle.
Have you read any nonfiction recently?
