The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama

I had to buy the book, he's making history right now. But I have to be honest about my review. I couldn't finish it. Not to say that other people won't enjoy it, you may find yourself completely engrossed in it. The title lured me in, this moment in the campaign lured me in and as quickly as it lured me in I was turned off and filing this on a book shelf. He's an amazing speaker, but he's a complete political writer. After half of the first chapter (fifteen or so pages of name dropping and politic theories and how he came to his position) I flipped back to the ninth chapter about his family and enjoyed that...well, tolerably. The book is closed, not to say that the man himself is not amazing but that it's just not my cup of tea. In fact, since I like tea so well, I would have to say that this is more like a cup of barley juice rather than tea at all.
One thing I must add to argue with certain rumors spread about him, he loves his mama and much of what he bases his platform on are the hardships he watched his mama strive through.


jlw

The Gathering by Anne Enright

Haunting. A completely brittle and open look at grief. Anne Enright requires her reader to have vision, not to take all things literally but to step into memories knowing that memories can be misconstrued because of the love you have for people and because of perception. This story's main character, Veronica Hegarty, is trapped in a world of losing a beloved brother, Laim, and of trying to understand her patchwork family. She struggles with how to just simply be after living with piles and piles of years' worth of confusion that seems to all rise to the surface with Liam's body, floating there, obvious amidst the beauty of the water. There is no romance in this novel. There is no comforting warm firelight at the end. This book is a majestic weave of pain and love, a poetic interlude between the fate of birth and death. Profound...