I’m not finished with this book yet, but I know I will in the next two nights. I will be so busy that I won’t have time to do a proper review. But at 75% finished, I think my thoughts on the review won’t change much.
Bill Maher can cause me to laugh out loud, nod in agreement, OR scream at my TV (at least in my head). And I’m okay with that. I like hearing different points of view presented with a sense of humor or thoughtfully. This book is like his show; it is open and works over ideas. Bill’s point of view. This is one that you don’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. I feel we can disagree and still like/love each other. Bill gives us other ways to look at it all.
I was lucky to get this from Libby as an Audible. Bill Maher narrates with all his best humor and maybe a bit of bitterness. But thoughtfully, respectfully, um, for the most part.
This is an interesting conversation—and, yes, uncomfortable. But it is enlightening to see how conversations late at night can get, where you ask the hard questions and the other person lets down their social shield and purely expresses what we all really want to know but are afraid to ask.
Emmanuel Acho has written other books, including Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man, and he has a podcast similarly named. But with what happened in the East on October 7th, many of us are confused about the whole thing. We think we understand Israel’s stand and possibly Palastine’s, but what was the third people, Hamas? And what was all of that?
I thought I needed to hear it from someone close to the source, Noa Tishby, rather than the opinions of the crowd. This book explores this topic and many of the misconceptions about the Jewish people.
I was fortunate enough to pick this up on Libby. I highly suggest the audio version, as it gives you the full experience of Noa and Emmanuel’s conversation. I will be looking up more by both authors. It’s quite interesting!
This series is so sweet. It isn’t a mushy romance, but romance is there. It satisfies my travel bug, and I get to play with a little of my mini French-speaking. This series is the only one I am taking my time to actually read and not listen to. I have it on my old phone in the Kindle. It is a slower read than the Audiobooks, but I can stay with it as I love the characters and the story. Laura Bradbury writes her story well.
In this story, after a year in Quebec, Canada, Laura and her boyfriend return to France to visit his family for Christmas. It is a shorter book than others, but it made me love the family more.
By the way, if you know absolutely no French, you will not be lost in these books, as the little bits are used in context with the English. This series takes you from when Laura does an exchange year in France for high school through her adult life in France. I have already started the next book, in which the couple gets to go back to France for a college exchange program.
Autobiographies are hard to rate. It feels like I’m rating the person or their life experiences. So, instead, I will say this was interesting. Ms. Smith did her own narration, which is always more authentic.
What is different about this book is that Jada takes the time to address the reader and guides us through our own issues that might be like what she went through. A little journal prompts the reader to write out their own feelings.
This was a Libby audiobook. I think you all might like it.
Whoa! This is a lot! A crazy book to read at bedtime. My emotions were all over the place.
It’s worth the read. So much information! I love that the author did the narration, as you could tell her heart was in the read.
It’s so late at night that I can’t think of what to say that will help others to want to check out this book. It is so worth the read. I’m just warning you. If anger, excitement, sadness, hopelessness, regret, hope, and other huge emotions keep you awake, you might want to read this earlier in the day. I had too many 3 AM bedtimes that didn’t turn into actual sleep. Emotions about women, historical events, and all the wins and losses we’ve all lived through, but receiving only partial information played through my head, wondering what I would have done. What could I have done? How about the personal situations I’ve been through like some of these women; what needed to be done?
So read it for yourself and learn what you can. I was lucky to get to read (listen to) it on Libby.
I love this series! I get to exercise my little bit of Duolingo French and travel with Laura, first to France and then to Montreal, Quebec, the destination of this book. The only bit of Canada I’ve been to was Victoria, BC. And then only a few hours on vacation when I was a child.
The relationship between Laura and Franc develops through cold and scary times.
Ms. Bradbury’s writing pulls the reader in. She knows how to tell her story.
I read this on Kindle. I read it a little at a time on one of my old phones. It was great for those moments when waiting, during commercials, etc. It took a bit, but the story stayed with me, so I never felt I needed to review the last bit I read.
I have already ordered the next book in her series.
This was quite interesting. I was lucky to get the Kindle from Libby. Now, I want to get the paper version to catch the pictures, recipes, and ideas to read more slowly and start bringing more of these ideas into my life. What I’d really like to do is travel to these countries myself. I look forward to watching this on Netflix.
I used to live near the Seventh Day Adventist communities, the one in Loma Linda and the one in La Sierra, California. My friends attended that church, so I had an early intro to the vegetarian diet. That fit quite well for me as I never liked meat. I got to have special dinners with those friends and was amazed at the variety and full flavor of everything offered. The only thing I would object to is the smog. It was very thick in those areas. I would bet that these people would live even longer elsewhere.
This wasn’t a long or engaging read. I used Text-to-Speech and was through it in a couple of nights. Like I said, I look forward to having the book.
And the flounder is how to not hyperfocus on diamond painting and reading. I find there’s so much to do and read and so little time. I need at least 48 hours for my day!
Oh, my goodness! This book was fun from the very beginning. My eyes have difficulties tracking to read; even since cataract surgery fixed a lot of my issues, tracking remains nearly impossible. I have been an avid reader since I was little. Reading was slow going, but I got through the ten books allotted by the library every three weeks. The heft of the books was unwieldy, but I didn’t ask for help.
So, I began reading this book on my old phone using the Kindle app. It took me quite a while to get through even half the book. Finally, I caught up with the Libby audiobooks I had checked out, and Piglet became my bedtime book. Now, I could use text-to-speech and speed up the reading quite a bit. And give my eyes a rest.
Another reason I got into this book is my own dog, Kali, passed last spring after being nearly blind and having doggy dementia and bad hearing. It was so hard at the end of her life, but we had such a hard time from the beginning trying to learn from each other that the bond for her was strong in the end. I miss her so much and feel the need to help another dog as soon as I can. Meanwhile, Piglet helped me. Now I feel even stronger about getting another dog. I know there is one out there that needs me as much as I need him or her.
I think this book has a couple of other inspirational stories within. Melissa Shapiro is a veterinarian who tells her story of how she and her husband got together. Then, she shares her children’s aspirations with music. She tells of their college experiences.
By the way, one of her daughters and her husband have honest and raving reviews on the Piglet GoodReads page. I was delighted to read these as I felt I knew them from the book.
This book is full of the good feels a person needs these days. I look forward to looking all over the internet to find videos and follow the dogs, Melissa, and her family, and all the good they are doing for disabled people and animals.
When I feel I am floundering, I need to remember the floundering Ms. Shapiro and her husband went through with that one-pound blind, deaf puppy screaming his needs to them. Floundering is how one finds one’s balance. That is what February gives me. Meanwhile, today my turtles got a little more colorful.
This has to win the Black History Month finest read. Joy-Ann Reid has written and narrated one of the best books I have read in a long time. Especially since I don’t much like nonfiction, there was history and personal story involved. I cared from the beginning for all the characters involved. And Ms. Reid became one of them as she was a personal witness by getting to know Myrlie Evers personally. So, her research was not only factual but personal. That is a true history book!
It wasn’t just a bunch of facts and men, as most history books seem to be. Nor was it only fighting and war and the heroes. However, that was included as only a part of history.
I could not stop listening/reading, so I went over my 3 AM sleep time as I didn’t want to stop listening. Joy-Ann is fun to listen to, and I always feel the wiser when I heed her voice.
I highly recommend this book. I was lucky to find it on Libby as an audiobook.
Since this is Black History Month, I decided if the Libby app could get this book to me, I would read it. Well, listen to it. They had the audiobook. Clay Cane did his narration.
As important as the information in this book is, I found it like any history book. It was all facts, names, and dates. I felt it could use more story and more emotion for the reader to relate to. The author/narrator was hyped and sounded like an evangelistic preacher. So before long, it was just noise.
Maybe it would be better to read the paper copy or the Kindle version. I felt I needed charts and timelines, and I needed to take notes. That’s hard to do at 2 in the morning when I am trying to go to sleep. I may have to read this again with the summaries I see on Mr. Cane’s Amazon and Goodreads pages. All that I have said about it was my own reaction to how it went into my brain so late at night. I think others who hold onto facts better than I do will love this and find new insights into our system of government.
So don’t take my word for it. Try it. You might like it and learn something you didn’t know before.
The Floundering part of this review is knowing it is a good and important book. But my lack of sleep or ability to concentrate ruined the book for me. And the entire day following. I got nothing done but weird naps and 40 minutes at the diamond painting only amounted to:
Just the little green drills got done in the 40 minutes before my body decided it was enough.
Working on my series: Haven.
Doodler (zendoodle.com)
Music major: voice and piano
Mom of four great adults
Reiki II practitioner
I have been on disability/retired for 10 years now from depression, anxiety and fibromyalgia.
How does a free blog site work when everything is tied to dollars? How do you create content without using proprietary themes when it seems even the colors and fonts are tied to upgrades for usage? Is it even possible? I hope to find out.
What This Comedian Said Will Shock You by Bill Maher
Darswords 
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