Reading Review March 2015

What I read in March 2015

The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh

New Adult, Fiction, Contemporary, Romance

Aging out of the foster care system, Victoria has never been able to get close to anyone or interested in anything. Though one thing stuck with her, flowers and their meanings and how they spoke to people. This book follows Victoria over about two decades and how she struggles to understand herself and how people interact with her. 

This book fascinated me. This was one I had a hard time putting down and read it in two days. While I didn't understand Victoria's childhood, it was interesting to see how someone could live through that and how they may end up interacting with the world as an adult. I enjoyed the flowers and their meanings and how it was a bright spot in her life. 

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Classic, Historical Fiction

Blurb taken from Goodreads "To Kill A Mockingbird takes readers to the roots of human behavior - to innocence and experience, kindness and cruelty, love and hatred, humor and pathos."

Picked this one up again to read for book club, it has been years and years and there was many things I didn't remember. One of my book clubs has a handful of retired educators and English teachers and it is always fascinating to hear an extra little spice to these classic stories that years of teaching it brings to the table. If you haven't read this in a while, it's time to pick it up again.

Walt Disney: The Triumph of The American Imagination 

by Neal Gabler

Biography, Nonfiction, History

An exhaustive look into Walt Disney's life. This book begins with his great grandfather- how the influence of how he raised Walts father Elias to how Elias and Flora raised Walt and Roy, if that tells you how much this book covers. Tons of 'behind the scene' information, like inter office letters exchanged, conversations with animators, meetings leading to business deals, and how Walt started to dream up the iconic parks and more. To borrow a phrase from the blurb "a revelation of both the work and the man."

This book is huge clocking in at 880 pages or over 30 hours on audiobook. I opted for audio and listened to it over the course of many weeks here and there. I felt for the most part this book was very unbiased towards the business decisions and deals Walt or the company made though a few times I felt like there were parts where it was obvious the author had an agenda. Being as big a fan as I am I still learned a lot (good, bad and fascinating)!