Wow. That’s the word I have for this book, just Wow. For a little background, I picked this book up quite awhile ago, probably at my favorite San Francisco bookstore, Green Apple Books. Green Apple is one of those independent bookstores where the smart and savvy employees write little comments on a note card, tempting you to make purchases you might not have otherwise made. Thus it was with me, and I made the purchase, brought the book home, put it in my TBR pile, and promptly forgot about it. Months later, I picked it up, and started in. Chapter one was kind of boring, and I gave up and…

Last night, I finished the second book in my Chunkster Challenge, Half of a Yellow Sun, in which the author, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie tells the story of the small, short lived nation of Biafra. Biafra tried to seperate itself from Nigeria in a horrible civil war, from 1967 – 1970. Nigeria received support from the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union, while Biafra was supported covertly by France, Rhodesia and South Africa. While Nigeria certainly had military superiority, they mainly won victory by shutting off borders and shooting down relief planes, causing a famine that killed over a million people. It was from the horrors of Biafra that the humanitarian…

I decided to participate in the Chunkster Challenge, but I don’t know if I mentioned it in my blog more than in passing. Silly me. The time frame is January 1st through June 30th, and the guidelines are pretty free flowing. Bookfool from Bookfoolery and Babble decreed that all participants should read as many or as few (but duh, at least one) ‘chunksters’ during this time period. What, you may ask, is a ‘chunkster’? Well, as it has nothing to do with the size of my waist OR my thighs, I’ll be happy to tell you. It’s a book that is daunting in length, or, if you must be specific,…