Katie’s #26 #CBR4 Review: The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith
The Talented Mr. Ripley is not a book I would have picked up on my own for fear it would be too dark. However, I’ve been enjoying doing group reads a lot and this was the next book for the Constant Reader Group on Goodreads. The book tells the story of Ripley, a man sent to Europe to talk an acquaintance into returning to the United States. Instead, he begins desperately wishing he has his acquaintance’s life and even murder won’t prevent our amoral protagonist from achieving his goals. I’m sure you can see why I was worried about it being too dark!
The House of Mirth is a “
Tycho and Kepler is a detailed biography of Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler, covering both their personal lives and their scientific careers. It’s arranged in chronological order, smoothly transitioning between the two scientists. I liked this format a lot because it made it so easy to see how their lives related to one another. There was actually quite a lot of personal drama, although it was mostly presented an impersonal manner – enough so that I really want to read some historical fiction now to get a “first-person” perspective on this fascinating time period!
I’ve wanted to read the Uglies quartet for years, ever since they showed up on my little sister’s shelves. The series takes place in a post-apocalyptic society where all of humanity is gathered into a few independent cities. In every city, when citizens reach their 16th birthday they undergo a surgery to change them from “uglies” into super-model gorgeous “pretties”. There is, of course, a catch. Both the catch and most of the other plot points were quite predictable, although the motivations of those in charge surprised me; I just don’t feel like they got enough out of it. But the idea was novel and I appreciated that. The world was also very well developed and the details of the procedure by which people became pretty were fleshed out enough to make it very believable.
Farmer-philosopher Frederick Kirschenmann’sCultivating an Ecological Conscience is a collection of thoughtful essays about the “ethical and practical principles” of developing a sustainable agricultural system. Drawing on his experiences as a theologian and a farmer, he delivers a series of measured arguments that a shift to more sustainable agriculture is a necessary change. As I mentioned in my 
Uncertain Peril: Genetic Engineering and the Future of Seeds is a manifesto strongly opposing our current use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). As someone pursuing a PhD in bioinformatics and generally comfortable with the idea of genetic engineering, I expected to be entirely unconvinced by the author’s arguments. In fact, I almost didn’t pick this book up at all, because I wasn’t sure I could read it objectively enough. However, I think avoiding reading books by author’s with viewpoints opposed to my own would seriously limit the amount I learn from 
Recently, I’ve become unhealthily obsessed with 
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn follows Francie Nolan as she grows up in Boston as part of a poor, second-generation, American family. A major theme running throughout the book is Francie’s mother’s focus on seeing her children educated and giving them a better life than she herself had. Francie’s own love of reading and education was to me one of the most endearing parts of the novel. As a bibliophile, it’s hard not to fall in love with a precocious little girl who’s decided to read through every book in her library – what she thinks is every book in the world. This is a small spoiler, but I think the fact that Francie eventually got her education was crucial to my enjoyment of the book. I’m someone who prefers happy endings any way and to have someone so in love with learning be stuck working menial jobs forever would have just been too heart breaking.
This is one of the first books I’ve read and really thought, here is a non-fiction book for someone who doesn’t read non-fiction. The author, James Herriot, shares tales of his life, with all its’ adventures and mishaps, as a country vet in North Yorkshire, the largest county in England. Like 
This book has been reviewed a seemingly endless number of times on CBR, so my review will be quick and painless. For more extensive reviews, check out all of the preceding reviews 
Cannonball Read IV 