Our Boys by Joe Drape

Our Boys:  A perfect season on the plains with the Smith Center Redmen by Joe Drape was excellent.  I am trying to read more non-fiction this year, and this is definitely one of my favorites.  Smith Center is a small town in northern Kansas that has a great football team.  Joe Drape is a writer from New York that did a story on them, and then decided they needed more than just one short story; they needed a book about them, so he moved his wife and young son to this small town of less than 2,000 from Manhattan, New York.  Quite a move.  He went to every practice, coaches meeting, game, and really got to know the team as they tired to win their 5th state championship and make the longest winning streak for a high school team in Kansas.  I was so impressed with the Coaches, players, and the town and how they loved and supported their boys.  It made me want to move to Smith Center also.  This book is about football, but that isn't the whole story.  The whole story is about a coach, school, town and community that loved their boys and wanted to make them a little better every day.  A great read!  Check it out!

A Jane Austen Education by William Deresiewicz

A Jane Austen Education by William Deresiewicz was a very interesting read.  It was one modern man's take on 6 of Jane Austen's novels and what he learned from them.  William Deresiewicz was a graduate student and reading Austen for his classes and his dissertation.  He dissects each book and tells what he learned about life from Austen.  From Emma he learns that everyday things matter--the small and simple things and people make the difference.  From Pride and Prejudice he learns about growing up.  Learning to learn is the lesson from Northanger Abbey.   Mansfield Park is about being good.  Persuasion teaches him about true friends, and Sense and Sensibility is about falling in love.  He applies these to his life at the time and not only tells Austen's story, but his own.  Being a huge Austen fan, I enjoyed this non-fiction book. 

Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand

This book was amazing!  It is a nonfiction about a World War II plane crew that crashes, how the survivors make in on a raft for the longest time ever known in the Pacific Ocean and then as POW's in Japan.  This was hard to read at times and turned my stomach as I read about the treatment of the POW's by their captors, but I had such an overwhelming sense of gratitude for what those brave men did and went through for others, myself, my country, and my freedom.  A friend said, "It was an honor to read this book," and I agree.  Anything that makes us understand and better appreciate our history is well worth our time.  WWII has so many stories from the millions that were involved on both sides, and we can learn and grow so much from those, and it is so important that we do.  This is a wonderful example.  Laura Hillenbrand has a wonderful writing style that takes you right there to help you appreciate it even better.  How these men went through all this, came out alive (which is a miracle) and then were able to overcome and move on and even forgive (which is an even bigger miracle) is so uplifting and amazing and a tribute to God and the human spirit.  Please check this one out.  You will not regret it.

The Geography of Bliss by Eric Weiner

Described as a "philosophical self-help humorous travel memoir" this was an interesting read.  It is non-fiction.  It took me a while to get through it, and he was a little more crass than I normally like--normally don't like anything crass or with language.  This had a little of both, so I can't highly recommend it, but it was interesting.  Eric Weiner is a grump, and he was determined to find the world's happiest place.  Each chapter he goes to a different country and tries to figure out why that place is happy or not.  A positive therapy researcher--or a happiness researcher-- has rated the countries in the world from the happiest to the least happy, so Weiner goes to check them out.  Netherlands, Switzerland, Iceland, Thailand, and Bhutan are some of the happiest.  Weiner goes to each of these to see why.  Moldova is one of the least happy, and he also goes there to find out why.  Britain, India, Qatar, and the US are also visited and discussed.  It was interesting to learn about the different places and what really does make people happy.  Hate to over use the word "interesting," but it was that and informative.

The Lemon Tree by Sandy Tolan

I absolutely loved this book!  Non fiction is usually not my favorite genre, but I really loved this.  Being an English major I read a lot, a lot, a lot in college (did I mention I had to read a lot in college??), and looking back I think all of what I read was fiction (I don't think textbooks count at non-fiction literature, they are just textbooks).  I don't think I ever read a really, good non-fiction book for any of my English classes, so I have really not been a big fan of non-fiction, but this changed my mind.  After reading this I can say that well-written non-fiction can rival good fiction any day.  I think one reason I loved this is because it explained so well--in language anyone can understand the conflict in the Middle East.  Why is there always fighting in Israel?  What is going on?  I never really understood it or knew until I read this.  In reading the reviews it said that one high school teacher was having her whole 9th grade class read it.   I agree and applaud that teacher, and I am going to have my 8th grader read it.  It is appropriate and will help them learn and understand so much about the area and conflict.  In a very short, short synopsis the book starts in about 1917 and is about an Arab family that is forced to leave their home by Jews without any compensation into a refugee camp.  The home is given to a Jewish family from Bulgaria who have no knowledge why the previous family left.  The home has a lemon tree in the back yard--thus the title.  Years after the children of both of these families have grown up, the Arab son is finally able to travel back to his boyhood home, and he is met at the door by the Jewish girl that grew up there after he left with her having no knowledge of why or how he left.  This Arab man and Jewish woman develop a friendship from what they have shared--their home and lemon tree-- and try to work out how to make things better.  This helped me to see how complex a situation this is--no one side is all right and the other all wrong.  Many wrongs have been done on both sides and a better way to fix things needs to be found for these people who still suffer.  An excellent read.  I would highly recommend it.