1253. The Eduction of Little Tree (Forrest Carter)

Synopsis:
The super-seller memoir of a Cherokee boyhood in the 1930s. The most sensitive and evocative autobiographical account ever of the Cherokee way, as seen through the eyes of a young boy in the Appalachian Mountains.

My rating: 2 stars

My review: Another book I read in school and disliked.

876. Kaffir Boy (Mark Mathabane)

Synopsis from Amazon:
Kaffir Boy does for apartheid-era South Africa what Richard Wright's Black Boy did for the segregated American South. In stark prose, Mathabane describes his life growing up in a nonwhite ghetto outside Johannesburg--and how he escaped its horrors. Hard work and faith in education played key roles, and Mathabane eventually won a tennis scholarship to an American university. This is not, needless to say, an opportunity afforded to many of the poor blacks who make up most of South Africa's population. And yet Mathabane reveals their troubled world on these pages in a way that only someone who has lived this life can.

My rating: 4 stars

775. My Life and Hard Times (James Thurber)

Synopsis from Amazon:
Widely hailed as one of the finest humorist of the twentieth century, James Thurber looks back at his own life growing up in Columbus, Ohio, with the same humor and sharp wit that defined his famous sketches and writings. In My Life and Hard times, first published in 1933, he recounts the delightful chaos and frustrations of family, boyhood, youth odd dogs, recalcitrant machinery, and the foibles of human nature.

My rating: 5 stars

757. A Zoo in My Luggage (Gerald Durrell)

Synopsis from Amazon:
Fans of Gerald Durrell’s timeless classic My Family and Other Animals will love this hilarious tale, which finds him as an adult still charmed by his beloved animals. A Zoo in My Luggage begins with an account of Durrell’s third trip to the British Cameroons in West Africa, during which he and his wife capture animals to start their own zoo. Returning to England with a few additions to their family — Cholmondeley the chimpanzee, Bug-eye the bush baby, and others — they have nowhere to put them as they haven’t yet secured a place for their zoo. Durrell’s account of how he manages his menagerie in all sorts of places throughout England while finding a permanent home for the animals provides as much adventure as capturing them. For animal lovers of all ages, A Zoo in My Luggage is the romping true story of the boy who grew up to make a Noah’s Ark of his own.

My rating: 5 stars

756. All Things Bright and Beautiful (James Herriot)

Synopsis from Amazon:

The world's most beloved animal doctor delightfully continues where he left off in All Creatures Great and Small with new adventures through the Yorkshire dales-- and a whole new menagerie of memorable patients.

Young James, now married and working as a small-town vet, encounters a cast of extraordinary characters as he makes his way through the Yorkshire countryside tending to sick cattle, pregnant ewes, ailing dogs-- and their eccentric owners. As always, Herriot's warmth, humor, and singular view of life make us laugh and cry, as we marvel at the everyday miracles he creates.

My rating: 4 stars

658. A Rumor of War (Philip Caputo)

Synopsis from Amazon Canada:
In March of 1965, Marine Lieutenent Philip J. Caputo landed at Da Nang with the first ground combat unit deployed to Vietnam. Sixteen months later, having served on the line in one of modern historys ugliest wars, he returned homephysically whole but emotionally wasted, his youthful idealism forever gone. A Rumor of War is more than one soldiers story. Upon its publication in 1977, it shattered Americas indifference to the fate of the men sent to fight in the jungles of Vietnam. In the years since then, it has become not only a basic text on the Vietnam War but also a renowned classic in the literature of wars throughout history and, as Caputo explains, of the things men do in war and the things war does to men.

My rating: 4 stars

575. The Day I Turned Uncool (Dan Zevin)

I hope that I never become so uncool that I forgo Natty Boh for wine.

Synopsis from author:
Sooner or later, each of us must face the day we develop a disturbing new interest in lawn care; the day we order sauvignon blanc instead of Rolling Rock; the day we refuse to see any concert where we cannot sit down. Sooner or later, each of us must face the day we turn uncool ....

My rating: 4 stars

565. The Lord God Made Them All (James Herriot)

Janet's Foss in the Yorkshire Dales

Synopsis from Amazon Canada:
It is just after World War II, and James has returned from the R.A.F. to do battle with the diseases and injuries that befall the farm animals and pets of Skeldale and the surrounding moors. Four-year-old Jimmy Herriot, Humphrey Cobb and his little beagle Myrtle, Norman the book-loving veterinary assistant, and many more new faces join old favorites among the green hills of Yorkshire, as James takes an unforgettable voyage to Russia on a freighter with 383 pedigreed sheep. Touching our hearts with laughter and wisdom, lifting our spirits with compassion and goodness, James Herriot never fails to delight.

My rating: 4 stars

554. All Creatures Great and Small (James Herriot)

Synopsis from Amazon:
In All Creatures Great and Small, we meet the young Herriot as he takes up his calling and discovers that the realities of veterinary practice in rural Yorkshire are very different from the sterile setting of veterinary school. From caring for his patients in the depths of winter on the remotest homesteads to dealing with uncooperative owners and critically ill animals, Herriot discovers the wondrous variety and never-ending challenges of veterinary practice as his humor, compassion, and love of the animal world shine forth.

My rating: 5 stars

527. All Things Wise and Wonderful (James Herriot)

Yorkshire

Synopsis from Amazon:
In the midst of World War Two, James is training for the Royal Air Force, while going home to Yorkshire whenever possible to see his very pregnant wife, Helen. Musing on past adventures through the dales, visiting with old friends, and introducing scores of new and amusing characters -- animal and human alike -- Herriot enthralls us once again with his uncanny ability to spin a most engaging and heartfelt yarn.

My rating: 4 stars

469. The Whispering Land (Gerald Durrell)

Patagonia, Argentina

Synopsis from Amazon:
The sequel to A Zoo in My Luggage, this is the story of how Durrell and his wife’s zoo-building efforts at England’s Jersey Zoo led them and a team of helpers on an eight- month safari in Argentina to look for South American specimens.

My rating: 4 stars

396. Fever Pitch (Nick Hornby)

Synopsis from Amazon UK:
Fever Pitch is both an autobiography and a footballing bible rolled into one. Nick Hornby pinpoints 1968 as his formative year -- the year he turned 11, the year his parents separated, and the year his father first took him to watch Arsenal play. The author quickly moved "way beyond fandom" into an extreme obsession that has dominated his life, loves, and relationships. His father had initially hoped that Saturday afternoon matches would draw the two closer together, but instead Hornby became completely besotted with the game at the expense of any conversation: "Football may have provided us with a new medium through which we could communicate, but that was not to say that we used it, or what we chose to say was necessarily positive." Girlfriends also played second fiddle to one ball and 11 men. He fantasises that even if a girlfriend "went into labour at an impossible moment" he would not be able to help out until after the final whistle. Fever Pitch is not a typical memoir -- there are no chapters, just a series of match reports falling into three time frames (childhood, young adulthood, manhood). While watching the May 2, 1972, Reading v Arsenal match, it became embarrassingly obvious to the then 15-year-old that his white, suburban, middle-class roots made him a wimp with no sense of identity: "Yorkshire men, Lancastrians, Scots, the Irish, blacks, the rich, the poor, even Americans and Australians have something they can sit in pubs and bars and weep about." But a boy from Maidenhead could only dream of coming from a place with "its own tube station and West Indian community and terrible, insoluble social problems." Fever Pitch reveals the very special intricacies of British football, which readers new to the game will find astonishing, and which Hornby presents with remarkable humour and honesty -- the "unique" chants sung at matches, the cold rain-soaked terraces, giant cans of warm beer, the trains known as football specials carrying fans to and from matches in prison-like conditions, bottles smashing on the tracks, thousands of police officers waiting in anticipation for the cargo of hooligans. The sport and one team in particular have crept into every aspect of Hornby's life -- making him see the world through Arsenal-tinted spectacles.

My rating: 4 stars

305. The Autobiography of Malcolm X (Malcolm X)

Synopsis from Amazon:
Malcolm X's searing memoir belongs on the small shelf of great autobiographies. The reasons are many: the blistering honesty with which he recounts his transformation from a bitter, self-destructive petty criminal into an articulate political activist, the continued relevance of his militant analysis of white racism, and his emphasis on self-respect and self-help for African Americans. And there's the vividness with which he depicts black popular culture -- try as he might to criticize those lindy hops at Boston's Roseland dance hall from the perspective of his Muslim faith, he can't help but make them sound pretty wonderful. These are but a few examples. The Autobiography of Malcolm X limns an archetypal journey from ignorance and despair to knowledge and spiritual awakening.

My rating: 5 stars

284. I Visit the Soviets (E. M. Delafield)

Synopsis from Amazon UK:
A provincial lady slogs through the mud of a collective farm, copes with Soviet trains and hotels and rubs shoulders with robust citizens, at a public beach.

My rating: 4 stars

80. One Pair of Hands (Monica Dickens)

Monica Dickens, a descendant of Charles Dickens. Could good writing be genetic?

Synopsis from Amazon:
What does a young, well-off English woman do with herself when she's thrown out of acting school and is tired of being a debutante? Well, if you're Monica Dickens, you become a cook. She makes the plunge to a life "below the stairs," confident in her abilities to be a cook because she once took a course in French cuisine. She quickly learns the difference between school learning and real life. Scalded milk, dropped roasts, and fallen souffles plague her in her domestic career, but she perseveres. What makes this book so delightful is the sense of humor and drama Monica Dickens brings to her work. From dressing up for job interviews in a "supporting-a-widowed-mum look" to eavesdropping on dinner guests, she tackles her work with an enthusiasm for discovery. To her descriptions of battles with crazy scullery maids, abusive employers, and unwieldy custards, she brings a humorous and pointed commentary about the delicate and ongoing war between the wealthy and their servants. Written in 1939, this true-life experience reveals a writer who wasted no opportunity to explore daily lives and dramas.

My rating: 5 stars

My review: One of my favorite books.

Publication information:

• Binding: Cloth
• Publisher: Harper & Bros. Publishers
• Date Published: 1939
  

76. My Family and Other Animals (Gerald Durrell)

Corfu, Greece

Synopsis from Amazon:
When the unconventional Durrell family can no longer endure the damp, gray English climate, they do what any sensible family would do: sell their house and relocate to the sunny Greek isle of Corfu. My Family and Other Animals was intended to embrace the natural history of the island but ended up as a delightful account of Durrell’s family’s experiences, from the many eccentric hangers-on to the ceaseless procession of puppies, toads, scorpions, geckoes, ladybugs, glowworms, octopuses, bats, and butterflies into their home.

My rating: 5 stars

Publication information:

• Published by Rupert Hart-Davis Ltd. in 1956