Retired and reading

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David Baldacci, Eden's Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and her Father, John Matteson, Louisa May Alcott Reading Challenge, The Christmas Train, True Blue, Wish You Well

The past three days I have gotten out of bed, moved to the couch, and read until the book I had started earlier was finished.  Yesterday’s book was The Christmas Train, by David Baldacci, a sweet little story about a cross-country adventure by train at Christmas.  As such things often happen, this very ordinary train trip ended up being anything but, and the spirit of Christmas prevailed.

Later in the day I started True Blue, also by David Baldacci.  This thriller kept me in suspense right up to the finish, with enough plot twists and turns to make me dizzy.  Whether you admire cops or not, this will keep you engaged.

And somehow I forgot to count the first David Baldacci book I read (several weeks ago), Wish You Well.  David Baldacci is one of my brother-in-law’s favorite authors, and he sent me a box with quite a stack of his novels included.  Wish You Well is the story of two children who go to live with their grandmother in Appalachia, and how they learn to care for each other under overwhelming circumstances.

One more that I read and reviewed, but didn’t count, was Eden’s Outcasts:  The Story of Louisa May Alcott and her Father, by John Matteson.  I read that during the Louisa May Alcott Reading Challenge earlier this year, and reviewed it here.

Reading Challenge 2015 book count:  31/50.

Kicking back

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book reviews, friendship, Nickolas Butler, Shotgun Lovesongs, Wisconsin

Today I have been a slug.  As usual, I awoke several minutes before my alarm was to go off, but this morning instead of letting it go through several snooze cycles and then waking the girls for church, I simply turned it off and let them sleep.

I started reading Shotgun Lovesongs by Nickolas Butler a week or so ago, a page or two here and there.  Then last night it grabbed hold of me, and I stayed awake too long reading.  It demanded to be finished today, so I moved from my cozy bed to the living room couch and continued reading.  I was totally captivated by this sweet love story, told in alternate chapters by the five main characters who grew up in a small Wisconsin farming community.

I am always pleasantly surprised when a male author gets properly into the head of his female characters, and Butler did this so very well.  My favorite character shifted as the story progressed, and I’m still not sure which one I ultimately loved the most.  But the key to the tale is how much they loved each other — childhood friends, rivals, lovers, buddies, neighbors.

I highly recommend Shotgun Lovesongs.  Give yourself the gift of time to read it. (By the way, it is now after 1:00 p.m. and my Fitbit reads 207 steps.  Definitely slug status.)

 

Reading progress so far:  27 of 50 towards my 2015 reading challenge.

 

More reading

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Allen Eskens, Blue Asylum, Dorothea Benton Frank, Kathy Hepinstall, Mennonite in a Little Black Dress, Rhoda Janzen, The Hurricane Sisters, The Life We Bury

I went on another reading jag at the end of last week, thanks to boxes and bags of books gifted by friends.  Statistically I’m half-way toward my goal of 50 books read this year, but I read more in the colder months anyway, so will for sure reach that goal.

This first book is a bit of catching up for me, as it was read a couple of weeks ago.  I had seen Mennonite in a Little Black Dress, by Rhoda Janzen, many times in Target, and had it in my cart once or twice before putting it back on the shelf.  Then my sister sent it to me, and once I started reading I could hardly put it down.  If you have ever run home to your parents’ house to hide, regroup, or recuperate (as I did after Divorce #1), you will appreciate Rhoda’s struggles to remain an adult woman in the eyes of the people who once knew you best.  She grew up in the Mennonite community in and around Fresno, California, and I recognized many of the landmarks in her stories.  Heartwarming and hilarious, this was definitely a fun read.

Gift book #2, The Life We Bury, by Allen Eskens, is at first glance a murder mystery, and as such would not usually be my choice to read.  But beyond that it is the story of a young man trying to find his way, hampered by a horribly dysfunctional mother who dumps his autistic younger brother into his care.  Throw in a college writing assignment that leads him to a Viet Nam vet who did time for a murder he says he didn’t commit, and a war buddy who insists the truth be told, and you have a story that insists on being read in one sitting.

After The Life We Bury, I needed a little lighter fare, and found The Hurricane Sisters, by Dorothea Benton Frank, to be the perfect dish.  Three generations of Southern women with larger-than-life personalities face life’s challenges in very different ways, but are bound by family and tradition.  It was funny, sad, and bittersweet…very much like life in a family.

I took Blue Asylum, by Kathy Hepinstall, along for the weekend in case I finished The Hurricane Sisters early (which I did).  There is something very satisfying about curling up in a lovely hotel suite with a rainstorm outside and a gothic novel in hand.  This tale of a proper Southern plantation wife who defied her husband publicly and was confined to an insane asylum, was compelling as it asked what determines lunacy and sanity.  This one, too, begged to be read in one sitting.

Reading score so far:  26 of Reading Challenge 2015 goal of 50.

(Next on the stack:  Twelve Years a Slave, by Solomon Northup)

Color me creative

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artistic challenges, Color Me Creative: Unlock your imagination, creativity, emojis, Kristina Webb, Lily

On a recent shopping trip I discovered Kristina Webb’s Color Me Creative:  Unlock your imagination.  This lovely fat paperback begins with Kristina’s own story of being a very creative/artistic child and the way she and her family dealt with the often very UNcreative restrictions encountered in school.  She tells about becoming an Instagram artist with a huge following, and how blessed she feels with each new “like” or “follow”.

The second part of the book is a series of 50 artistic challenges for the reader, to be done in no particular order, without a grade or scorecard.  They look like delightful fun, and my original plan was to do them myself.

As I continued reading, though, I realized this book was tailor-made for Lily, who seldom puts down her drawing pencils except to read.

So as of about thirty minutes ago, Color Me Creative has changed owners, and Lily is eagerly drawing and naming a set of emojis for her first challenge.  This is going to be fun to watch!

23/50 Reading Challenge 2015

Down time

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2015 Reading Challenge, bookworms, Inkdeath, Inkheart, Inkspell, The Tale of Despereaux

So what does a self-confessed bookworm do when she is flat on her back and sitting is miserable?  She reads…a lot!  I know I’m way behind in recording/reporting my reading  for 2015, but I will happily share my reading over the past three days.  (I’ll catch up on previous reads later.)

Lily brought Inkheart home to read over the Labor Day weekend.  Inkheart is a wonderful young adult fantasy by Cornelia Funke, the first in a trilogy that also includes Inkspell and Inkdeath.  I picked it up Sunday afternoon after calling off work, and before nightfall I had passed Lily’s bookmark and was nearly half way done.  With Monday being another day of enforced leisure, I completed it by mid-afternoon, much to Lily’s chagrin.

I was totally charmed by the story of Meggie, the girl who had no memory of her book-restorer father ever reading aloud to her.  Through the misadventures of her father and her lost mother’s aunt, she discovered his terrifying gift, and came to realize that she shared it, as well.  I will be looking for the next two stories in our local library soon.

Today Lily brought home The Tale of Despereaux, by Kate DiCamillo.  I read the story of this tiny little mouse who fell in love with a princess before bedtime, and found it totally charming.  I will give it back to Lily to finish when she wakes up in the morning.

Tomorrow I will catch up with some more of my reading for the past month or so…somehow book reviews just haven’t been forthcoming.  But I can say that I am well on track to read 50 books this year.

Accounted for so far:

22/50 of 2015 Reading Challenge.

“Still Alice”

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book reviews, dementia, Early Onset Alzheimer's Disease, Lisa Genova, Reading Challenge 2015, Still Alice

Yesterday while in Target to get Lily’s birthday present, I found myself in the book section (what a surprise) and Still Alice jumped out at me.  I have a note in the back of my planner to look for the movie, but had forgotten it was a book first.  I started reading and only stopped long enough for Lily’s birthday celebration.  Stayed up until after 2:00 this morning, slept, awoke at 7:15 and started reading again.  I just finished, and think I will be haunted by it forever.

Still Alice, by Lisa Genova, is a fictional story of Alice, a Harvard professor of neuroscience who specializes in studying the acquisition, organization, and use of language.  Shortly before her 50th birthday she begins to lose things — a word here, an idea there, her way home from work — and ultimately receives a diagnosis of Early Onset Alzheimer’s Disease.

Her journey from highly respected scientist and professor to someone who only partially recognizes her children and husband is as harrowing as it is compelling.  If you have Alzheimer’s Disease or Dementia in your family, this is a must-read.  If you don’t, read it anyway, as someone close to you may be fighting a battle you are totally unaware of.

Reading Challenge 2015 scoreboard:

16 – The Island by Elin Hilderbrind

17 – The Snow Globe by Judith Kinghorn

18 – People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks

19 – Still Alice by Lisa Genova.  19/50, with three others in progress.

Rain and wasted water…an A-Z Challenge “free” post

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A-Z Challenge, drought, green lawns, rain, water police, water regulations

It rained here yesterday. Way less than we needed, but enough to keep my vegetables and flowers happy for several days. Just now I went out into the front yard to put out the garbage cans for tomorrow morning’s pickup, and what did I discover? My next-door neighbor’s sprinklers going full-tilt boogie under the shadow of darkness!

Now these neighbors are very sweet people (other than their yappy little dog, that is), and I’m sure our rather “rugged” front yard is a never-ending source of embarrassment for them. But their front (and back) yard is always that deep, rich green that shouts “we don’t worry about water restrictions at all” and by all rights should be an absolute magnet for the water police.

As the drought deepens in California and the State encourages people to “rat out” their offending neighborhood water-wasters, I wonder what will happen to relationships between neighbors. Is a deep green lawn really worth offending your thrifty neighbors who follow the rules? And what will happen when the water-conserving neighbor finally has enough of her water-overusing neighbor? Will there be city police reports, or merely visits from the water police?

Some of us have been cutting back on our water usage for several years now, and our landscaping shows that. I have planted less and less, because water is at a premium and I’m trying to keep it under control. Our city water regulations allow watering twice weekly after 7:00 p.m., which is not only inconvenient, it fosters fungus and other diseases in our gardens. But there are many who either didn’t get the memo regarding limiting their water usage, or they simply don’t care. Either way, our community loses.

Silent honor

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Danielle Steel, Forever Friends, Girl in Translation, internment, Japanese relocation camps, Jean Kwok, Silent Honor

Well, Danielle Steel has done it again. A couple of nights ago I stayed up and finished Girl in Translation, by Jean Kwok, and then started in on Forever Friends, by Danielle Steel. As is my wont, I finished it in one satisfying sitting. And then this morning after taking the girls to school and visiting my mechanic briefly with my misbehaving Jeep, I opened Silent Honor and was immediately captured.

I have been both outraged and fascinated by the so-called “relocation camps” where the Japanese in America were detained during WWII, and Silent Honor provides such an accurate telling of the privations and small miracles that occurred in those camps. My son’s father, grandparents, and great-grandparents were interned in Arkansas, and although my mother-in-law wouldn’t discuss it, I know the family was very traumatized by the losses they suffered. In typical Danielle Steel fashion, she told a complex story that simply begged to be finished, and the last few pages left me with goose-bumps. This was truly a very good read. (And yes, I finished it this evening. That’s three books in three days. Happiness!)

2015 Reading Goal: 9, 10, 11/50.

The Seventh Mother

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book reviews, Lynn Cullen, Sherri Wood Emmons, The Creation of Eve, The Seventh Mother

Melody sent me The Seventh Mother by Sherri Wood Emmons last week along with my wonderful boxes of clothes. When I finished The Creation of Eve (by Lynn Cullen), I immediately jumped right in. It begins as a simple story of a loving single dad (Brannon) who is raising his eleven-year-old daughter while travelling from place to place following a series of temporary jobs. Emma is the independent woman who falls for Brannon (and his daughter, Jenny) and gives up the security of her job to become part of their travelling family. While Jenny is very fond of Emma, she won’t really let herself relax, as Emma is only one in a series of girlfriends who have come for a while and then gone away.

Dark undercurrents to the seemingly happy relationship between Brannon and Emma, as well as Jenny’s curiosity about her mother who died when she was very small, take Emma and Jenny off in directions that surprised me. Towards the end, I was reading as quickly as I could because the suspense was about to do me in. The Seventh Mother came to a very satisfying conclusion for me…most definitely a Good Read!

2015 Reading Goal: 8/50.

The Joys of Love

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A Wrinkle in Time, Madeleine L'Engle, The Joys of Love

My reading choices so far this year have been rather heavy and studious, but today’s book is a simply lovely little romance. Madeleine L’Engle is one of my absolutely favorite authors, and during our latest visit to the library I found a book trumpeted as “a new novel by the author of A Wrinkle in Time“. Madeleine L’Engle died in 2007 aged 87 years, but in 2008 her granddaughters published a manuscript first written in the 1940s and shared with them when they were preteens. This very autobiographical young adult novel about falling in love (both with the theater itself and with a fellow actor) is a delightful read, and will leave you wanting more.

Madeleine L’Engle is magnificent!

2015 Reading Goal: 7/50