by Rosanna Amaka

This book starts out well with an interesting idea: The spirit of an African slave woman narrates the experiences of her descendants over 200 years. I thought the idea intriguing and really wanted to enjoy the book.

However, I found it meandering and had trouble with the jumps from one set of characters to another. It was also written in present tense, which makes it difficult to keep attention on the story.

I can't say much more about it because apart from that beginning, very little of what I read stuck in my mind. A great idea with a scattered execution.

by Charlotte Banchi

I'm a big fan of time travel and picked this one up on free promotion, then wondered for the first third of the book where the time travel would come in. It does happen eventually, and in a very interesting way.

The story is set in New Mexico. Jeremiah Dakota has a Native American heritage and family who still live on the reservation, but he has gone out into the world and obtained a medical degree. Having become too well educated to believe in magic and the superstitions of his people, he is surprised when an owl spirit chooses him for a purpose that will take Jeremiah well into the world of magic and spirituality that he thought he had left behind.

The writing in this is very good and the characters well defined. I found myself interested in the story for despite the lack of time travel, then pleasantly surprised when that aspect finally came into it. There were times when the Hopi spirituality sounded too Wiccan to be entirely believable, but it made for a good Fantasy and I did get some sense of what it is like to live within a community that maintains its cultural identity apart from the outside world.

TITLE:  How Invention Begins: Echoes of Old Voices in the Rise of New Machines

AUTHOR:  John H. Leinhard

DATE PUBLISHED:  2008

FORMAT:  Paperback

ISBN-13:  9780195341201

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DESCRIPTION:

"In How Invention Begins, Lienhard reconciles the ends of invention with the individual leaps upon which they are built, illuminating the vast web of individual inspirations that lie behind whole technologies. He traces, for instance, the way in which thousands of people applied their combined inventive genius to airplanes, railroad engines, and automobiles. As he does so, it becomes clear that a collective desire, an upwelling of fascination, a spirit of the times--a Zeitgeist--laid its hold upon inventors. The thing they all sought to create was speed itself. Likewise, Lienhard shows that when we trace the astonishingly complex technology of printing books, we come at last to that which we desire from books--the knowledge, the learning, that they provide. Can we speak of speed or education as inventions? To do so, he concludes, is certainly no greater a stretch than it is to call radio or the telephone an "invention."

Throughout this marvelous volume, Lienhard illuminates these webs of insight or inspiration by weaving a fabric of anecdote, history, and technical detail--all of which come together to provide a full and satisfying portrait of the true nature of invention."

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REVIEW:

Informative and interesting.  Does what is says in the blurb.  "Stuff" doesn't get invented in a vacuum!

This is a wonderfully photographed book. I haven't watched the videos yet, but the photos are stunning. The title is somewhat misleading as the focus is on the PA, NJ, and NY. But there is so much packed in here.

I really enjoyed reading this one! I watched the movie starring Kevin Bacon when it came out and I thought it did a great job with updating this source material into modern times. They do keep some of the same elements here and there, though they change the person who was murdered and why. I liked that since I then went into this book cold and had no clue who did what to whom or why. I will say though that this book was published in the late 1950s and you feel that throughout. The woman in this story are wholly dependent on their husbands and you get a claustrophobic feeling after a while in this suburban community where everyone knows each other and sees each other for dinner parties it seems like every week. 

"A Stir of Echoes" follows Tom Wallace. Tom is happily married to his wife Anne. They have a toddler named Richard and are expecting another baby. He works at a plant and seems content with his life. When his brother in law comes to visit, they all go to their next door neighbor's home. Eventually things turn into a discussion of hypnotism and then Tom agrees to be hypnotized. His brother in law telling him to let his mind be "free" seems to have awakened something in Tom. Now Tom is seeing ghosts and is able to sense and see what others are feeling and doing. With Tom getting increasingly ill due to his newfound abilities and wanting to rid himself of the ghost that seems to call nightly, things get stirred up in the sleepy suburban community that is not all that it seems. 

Tom I thought was a great narrator. We find out that he loves his wife and feels ambivalent or indifferent to most of their neighbors. When his mind gets to be "free" though he becomes more attuned to them and sickened by their behavior. He feels trapped anytime he is near one of the women in the community who berates her husband and seems up for having an affair. The other neighbors definitely have a toxic marriage. The husband hates his wife for getting pregnant and talks of having affairs. I think that Matheson does a great job of contrasting Tom with them, but also showing how many people had marriages like this and you didn't see it because even when things were said and done in front of you, you ignored it.

Tom's wife Anne is a partner in this. She is angry and resentful of what this new ability is doing to Tom and turns away from him at times. I can see why after a while. This has to be alien to her. Her husband is supposed to provide for the family and protect them and now she is scared of what he may see that he chooses not to tell her.

The writing I think was pitch perfect for this time period. The flow works from beginning to end I thought and I didn't have a problem with where the story was going. 

The setting of the late 1950s and early 1960s I think makes sense for this book since I don't know if the things revealed in this book in a contemporary time would matter? Or I don't think it would work without it taking place in a suburban community from this day and age. I like the contrast of things in this new type of community not being as shiny and new and wholesome as one would think. 

The ending was definitely a surprise and I liked how things got resolved with Tom's ability.