a collection of tried and true
Two 20 something New York City designers document their 40 day experiment of dating each other. While I ended up disliking both participants immensely, and wondering if really was all true, it is an interesting read and I loved the design and blog format. Great on an ipad. The future of publishing? I doubt it, but pretty cool nonetheless and definitely worth checking out.
PJH rating: ***1/2
Saturday, August 17th, 2013
We joined the Monroe’s for our Third Annual Lake Erie Day of Family Fun a few Saturdays ago.
Born in Colorado in 1899, a young man moves back to Austria-Hungry with his father who was born and raised there. He quickly becomes involved in WW1 as a sharpshooter and the novel details the horrific war. An interesting historical novel that makes you happy to live in 2013.
PJH Rating: ***1/2
A 10 year old girl is abused by her father, orphaned, lives with her evil Grandmother who also dies and eventually finds peace in a foster home. Told from the view point of the 10 year old southern girl, it is a short, interesting, but nothing special novel.
PJH Rating: ***1/2
Two young 20 years olds in rural USA get involved in a murder of a homeless man in their dying ex-steel mill town. Told from the viewpoint of the two men and several other characters it is an interesting tale but very bleak and a sad reality for much of our country. It is a well written novel told in an interesting stream of consciousness style. The author has a more recent novel just published that looks good as well.
PJH Rating: ****
Courtney and Sophia drove up to Wisconsin on Saturday, August 4th leaving early afternoon after the swim championships. They drove close to Traverse City, spent the night in a hotel and then drove to Camp Hayowentha the next morning to show Sophie. Sophie liked it a lot and hopefully will be able to go next summer. They then made their way through the U.P. getting to Wisconsin early evening. I stayed behind to work and stay with everyone else as everyone was busy. I flew out on Wednesday afternoon arriving in Rhinelander around 10:00 PM or so. We stayed through Monday, leaving early and driving all they way home via Chicago.
Different groups of people, families and stories come together in a small midwestern town. The characters and stories are all interesting but the novel could have used a better editor as it seemed a bit verbose. Similar to Kent Haruf novels but not as well written. (I think I’m getting too picky as the reviews for this were outstanding everywhere)
PJH rating: ***1/2 (love the cover though)
This current Dutch best seller takes place entirely while two couples are out to dinner. The story unfolds as the evening goes on regarding the trouble the couples sons are in and unfortunately becomes more and more ridiculous as well. A fun book but not great.
PJH Rating: ***1/2
Courtney, Grace and Sophia were at Waldameer on Wednesday so Jack and I decided to meet Claire at Melt for dinner. We went to the one on Cedar and Taylor. I think there are 4 Melts now in Cleveland. Jack got the above lovely, I had the chicken parmesan which was great and Claire got the smokey russian. We all could only eat half as they are humongous. Very good though and a cool place to go.
…and down in beautiful Erie, PA:
Eat On Edgecliff 