| indicates a children's book
x indicates an unfinished book
January
Babette’s Feast. Isak Dinesen
I saw the movie before I read the short story. As great as the movie was, I wondered what else I could get from the story by reading the author’s words. A bit.
|Junie B. Jones and the Stupid Smelly Bus. Barbara Park
A cute story about a very strong-willed and funny little kindergartner. There is a series of Junie B. books, probably at least 25 or 30.
February
“Little Selves” by Mary Lerner
What a sweet short story. Family history, sort of. It was written in 1916 and published in The Atlantic Monthly and more currently in The Best American Short Stories of the Century, edited by John Updike. Margaret O’Brien isn’t far from death, though she is completely lucid. Family watches her and decides she is “just drawn into herself, as busy as a bee about something, whatever it is that she’s turning over in her head day-in, day-out.” Margaret is remembering. And people want to be remembered. Great short story! Free to read here.
How to Make a Cherry Pie and See the U.S.A. Marjorie Priceman
To me, it’s only redeeming factor is that it has an Airedale in it. The ADT accompanies the little girl to various states to find various ingredients to make the necessary items to make a cherry pie, such as wood for a rolling pin; sand to make glass for a measuring cup; etc.
|Trouble in the Barkers’ Class. Tomie DePaola
Very fun book about Airedales. The little Airedales, Moffie and Morgie, are just as cute as they can be! And the wonderful thing is that the new little girl, not the Airedales, is the one causing trouble in the class!!!! Great Airedales. Great story. Perfect book.
Art Making. Collections and Obsessions. An Intimate Exploration of the mixed-media work and collections of 35 artists, Lynne Perrella
Ohhh, what wonderful photographs. What delicious art. Collage, mixed-media. Old, new materials put together in unconventional ways, but often using the most common of materials. Some of the art was fabulous, some was less interesting to me. Absolutely no “how-tos” were given. None.
|Meet the Barkers. Morgan and Moffat Go to School. Tomie DePaola
A children’s book in which the main characters look like Airedales. The little Barker twins, Morgan and Moffat, prepare and attend school for the first time – and what happens after the first day of school. Cute story. Very cute Airedales.
Dragonwyck. Anya Seton
Such a novel, along the lines of Jane Eyre. It held my attention but I kept wondering if I were wasting my time. A little diversion for a brief time.
xLiterally, the Best Language Book Ever. Annoying Words and Abused Phrases You should Never Use Again. Paul Yeager
I did not finish this book. It is presented, more or less, in dictionary style, with an index at the back to look up those annoying words/phrases and seems to be a list of the author’s pet peeves of misused words/phrases.
My favorite was “issue.” He agrees with me that it’s completely misused these days. He writes, in part:
“The word issue has always meant topic, such as The following issues will be discussed at the company meeting: how many extra vacation days will be given to each employee, whether lunch should be extended to an hour and a half, and when we should start having four-day work weeks. As you can see, those wouldn’t be problems for most of us; they’d be topics that we’d be happy to discuss.
“Somewhere along the line, though, the word issue has somehow become synonymous with the word problem, such as saying There’s an issue with the copier when flames are shooting out of the back of the machine or I have issues with this report when, in fact, you don’t agree with one word in it.
“It’s hard to know why this transformation has been allowed to take place, but it’s probably either because we focus on problems so much that we assume every topic is viewed as a problem or, more likely, we’re trying to talk about problems in a kind, gentle manner so that others aren’t offended. The issue–I mean problems–with that is twofold. First, everyone now knows that you’re talking about a problem when you say issue, so it’s not working. Second, it leads to confusion among those who prefer to keep using the words in the manner in which they were intended.
“Put simply, do not use issue as a synonym for problem, and, by the way, don’t be tempted to use concern or concerns as an alternative way to say that something is a problem when you’re afraid to say so. It’s not an improvement and leads to the same confusion.”
March
|Baby Talk. A Book of First Words and Phrases. Judy Hindley
Cute pictures, simple rhyming verses. Great to use as a find and point book for little ones. It was on the library sale table at the G.C. library, otherwise I would not have encountered and read it.
The Pillars of the Earth. Ken Follett
A friend claimed this as her favorite book. I was utterly and totally disappointed. I thought the writing was okay but not great. He especially did not portray the conversations as they might have been in the 1000's. They sounded very 2000ish. It was a nearly-1000-page book, so it might have been hard to hold the interest of the reader with very few characters, but this book had a bunch of story-lines, a bunch of main characters. Somehow, for me, it just didn’t flow. Yes, it held my attention, wondering the outcome of some of the characters, but I could never, never claim it as one of my favorite books. I’m almost disappointed to have wasted my time on it. And, I was grateful to be able to skip over the too many paragraphs of sex and violence.
The Middle Place. Kelly Corrigan
Kelly writes about her experiences with breast cancer, with her dad’s prostate cancer, and about learning to let go of being the child of parents, to become the parent of children. There was some awful language (usually when expressing anger), but for the most part, she uses the English language beautifully.
The Art of Racing in the Rain. Garth Stein.
Enzo, the dog, recounts his life with Denny, Denny's wife Eve, and their daughter, Zoe. Denny is a race car driver who drives in the rain better than anyone. Enzo believes he will be reincarnated as a human man with opposable thumbs, a short tongue with which to talk, and a great deal of knowledge gained as a dog. Enzo often compares things learned in racing with life experiences. Again, some awful language (less than Corrigan’s book), but an interesting perspective.
One quote I liked was this: “There is no dishonor in losing the race.... There is only dishonor in not racing because you are afraid to lose.” (p. 277)
[What is it with modern writers that they need to use such foul language?!!! In Corrigan’s instance, she seems to use it most when she’s angry. She has a great command of the English language – using vulgarity like she does diminishes her writing, in my estimation. In Stein’s book, it seems to be used for emphasis by one character, which tells me what kind of a character he is.]
April
|Our Prairie Home. A Picture Album. Brooke Goffstein
I happened upon this book at the G. C. library on the sale table. What an absolutely charming book! Photographs of carved little people in simple settings in a home. Alvina, single, moves in with her sister and brother-in-law, Lillian and Bernard, and their daughter, Mildred. Very simple captions to these wonderful photographs, but you can tell so much about the people from them. What an adorable book! So I looked up some more of Goffstein’s books, listed below. Children’s books, of course....
|Brookie and Her Lamb. M. B. Goffstein
Love than transcends beyond abilities. From the jacket: “Brookie tries to teach her little lamb to read and sing, but finds that he is limited to baa-ing. After a short walk with him clears her mind, she takes him home and gives him lessons at which a lamb can excel.” Very simple line drawings. Again, charming.
|Our Snowman. M. B. Goffstein.
First-person and her brother build a snowman. Night comes, he’s alone, and First-person cries. Dad goes out and helps her build a wife for him. Pastel drawings, simple narrative, very effective.
|Fish for Supper. M. B. Goffstein
Gramma gets up at 5 a.m., makes breakfast, gets into the boat, rows out on the lake and fishes all day. Comes home, makes supper, goes to bed so she can go fishing the next day. Not quite as charming as the previous books.
|A Writer. M. B. Goffstein
A writer sits on the couch and thinks, ideas come, ideas go.... Not so charming as the first books.
|Artist’s Helpers Enjoy the Evenings. M. B. Goffstein
Fun book. Five pastel sticks: Blanc (Blonk) White; Noir (Nwahr) Black; Gris (Gree) Gray; Bistre (Beestra) Brown; Sanguine (songeen) Red) are friends and take care of each other. When they go to the desert, they keep hold of Sanguine. When they go out at dusk, they take care of Gris, and at night, they never let go of Noir or Bistre. Fun personification.
The Scarlet Pimpernel. Baroness Orczy.
I don’t usually go for mysteries and I guess I didn’t realize this was a mystery when I started listening to it in the car on CD. Somewhere I saw it recommended and I just wanted something easy to listen to while driving. Well, it turned out to be one of those books I didn’t want to put down! I listened in the car, then back inside when I had a few minutes, I started reading. Forget the CD. Just read. I enjoyed it. (about French Revolution time period)
May
The Count of Monte Cristo. Alexandre Dumas
I did not want to put this book down. It was a good follow-up to The Scarlet Pimpernel, at least as far as time sequence. It takes place a few years later, still in France. As the story begins Edmond, a young sailor, is disembarking from a ship. We learn that he is about to become the captain and is about to become engaged to Mercedes. And then vengeful actions of others cause him to be imprisoned for a decade. I will be interested to see how the movies portray him – hero or villain. In a way, he’s both. Worth the time to read all 1243 pages! (about French Revolution time period)
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day. Winifred Watson
A middle-aged governess turns up for the wrong job and is drawn into the life of a young star. The novel was written and takes place in 1938.
Lambs of God. Marele Day
Three nuns who have outlived the others are living an isolated and primitive existence in a run-down convent on an island. They are visited by an up-and-coming young priest who has in mind to sell the property for a rich people’s retreat. Cultures collide. Interesting story.
A Tale of Two Cities. Charles Dickens
I am sick of the French Revolution! I did not know this was a book about that time period or perhaps I would have chosen to read it at a different time. This is the 3rd, almost in a row, of books about it. So, it was interesting. Dickens’s language is a little different than we’re accustomed to these days, but it was readable and interesting. I suppose there’s lots more research I could do to learn more about the time, about Dickens’s writing style, about the novel itself, but I don’t want to.
June
Dog On It. A Chet and Bernie Mystery. Spencer Quinn
I listened to part of this on CD, read part of it. Very light reading, entertaining. It is told from the perspective of Chet, the dog. Fun. I suppose I would read the next one that comes out, if one does. (Too bad Chet’s not an Airedale!)
Garden Spells. Sarah Addison Allen
Finished in one day. Some magical realism, personalities, and characters. I enjoyed the story. As I was reading it, it occurred to me that the main character is an introvert.
The Introvert Advantage. How to Thrive in an Extrovert World. Marti Olsen Laney
Excellent book. I loved learning that the introvert and extrovert brains work differently physiologically. She gives lots of encouragement, helpful ideas, and ways to feel good about being an introvert and to adjust to the challenges introverts face. I should read it again. [But Quiet is better, in my opinion.]
Vienna Prelude. The Zion Covenant 1. Bodie & Brock Thoene
I wasn’t sure I wanted to read another book written about the WWII era, but it drew me in. This takes place in Vienna and Berlin just as Hitler comes to power in 1936. From what I understand, Brock does the research for the books and Bodie writes them. They are historically accurate as far as places and events of the known characters.
How Full Is Your Bucket? Positive Strategies for Work and Life. Tom Rath and Donald O. Clifton
Positive influences, comments, thoughts are more effective than negative. Our positives influence others as well as ourselves.
The Inheritance. Louisa May Alcott
This is Alcott’s first, unpublished novel, written when she was 17. Worth the read, if only because it’s Alcott’s first.
The Enchanted Barn. Grace Livingston Hill
This book was published in 1917. It was interesting to read about the time period - trolleys, climbing down from cars, and that a few miles from the center of the city it was still countryside. Shirley Hollister, the main character, and her family have their values in the right place.
Hill began writing in 1877 and had books published for 72 years!!!! From the Grace Livingston Hill website: [Her writing] “is at times a Christian life lesson, a romance, first-hand history, or even an outreach tool. The impact is as varied as the readers themselves. No matter how we read Grace's books, they inspire us to reach new heights.”
July
Prague Counterpoint. The Zion Covenant 2. Bodie & Brock Thoene
Sequel to Vienna Prelude. It continues the story of Elisa, Leah, John Murphy, and others. It goes behind the scenes in March 1938 Nazi Germany with some who serve in the Nazi army who are anti-Nazi. I thought it was really good.
This book (p. 247) has the German prayer that Aunt Dot said Aunt Mina used to say and which Aunt Dot gave me a copy:
I am small, my heart is pure.... No one shall live in it but Jesus alone.
Ich bin klein, mein Herz ist rein. Soll niemand drin wohnen als Jesus allein....
Munich Signature. The Zion Covenant 3. Bodie Thoene
You know, we know the outcome of World War II, but these books bring that time period down to a personal level. I didn’t want to stop reading, couldn’t wait to get back to reading when I had to stop. What a dark time period in European history, and probably for much of the world. Scary times, too. Takes place beginning in March 1938.
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
I love this book! The story is told through letters and it takes place in London and Guernsey, the Channel Islands, just after World War II. Juliet is an author and is contacted by Dawsey Adams, a member of the literary society, because he found her name and address as an owner of one of the books he bought 2nd hand. It’s a book about strength and love and compassion - and I loved it! Mary Ann Shaffer did research about the Channel Islands and its German occupation and I think the story is based on fact, though the characters are probably not “real.”
Jerusalem Interlude. The Zion Covenant 4. Bodie Thoene
This book takes place in August, 1938, in England, France, Germany, and Jerusalem. Some of it is on-the-edge-of-your-seat reading. Leah and Shimon are in Jerusalem where a good part of the story continues. Others in Jerusalem include Rabbi Lebowitz (whose daughter and family are in Poland) and Captain Orde. Also in Jerusalem we are introduced to Eli, a Jew, and Victoria, an Arab, who are in love. Elisa and Murphy and her parents, Anna and Theo, are in England. We learn more about Herschel Grynspan and his family. We also read about Thomas von Kleistman.
August
Danzig Passage. The Zion Covenant 5. Bodie Thoene
The next sequel in the series which takes place in November, 1938. Jerusalem with Capt. Orde. England with Eliza and Murphy, Anna and Theo. Germany with some new characters. Terrifying times, I think. What a strong soul it would have taken to be Jewish in Europe in 1938!
Warsaw Requiem. The Zion Covenant 6. Bodie Thoene
This book takes place from May to November, 1939. The Ibsen children, Lori and Jamie; Peter Wallich; Jacob and Mark Kalner; and Alfie Halder. Elisa and Murphy; others. It sure held my attention!
London Refrain. The Zion Covenant 7. Bodie Thoene
This books takes place in fall 1939 in London, Paris, and Poland. The beginning overlaps the end of the previous book in the series. A few more new characters, lots of known ones.
Paris Encore. The Zion Covenant 8. Bodie Thoene
Fall 1939 through mid-February 1940. Mostly Paris, a little in Germany and England. Characters we already knew plus some new characters. I wonder how the series will end! How will she be able to tie up all the loose ends?
September
Dunkirk Crescendo. The Zion Covenant 9. Bodie & Brock Thoene
This one takes place in spring 1940. Mostly in France. It was really good, too.
I liked these books but I don’t think the author/authors did a very good job of wrapping up the whole series. Some characters just seemed to be dropped, sometimes without us knowing whether they were dead or alive, and we never learned details about how they came through the war. That’s my only complaint about the series. I think it was really well-written and I think the authors did a good job of putting fictional characters into historical situations.
October
xUncle Sam’s Plantation. How Big Government Enslaves America’s Poor and What We Can Do About It. Star Parker
I liked this book quite a lot, though I didn’t finish the last chapter or so. It took me too long to read it and I just finally lost interest. (Does that statement go along with liking it, I wonder.) Anyway, I thought she did a great job of explaining some of the reasons why America is in the mess it’s in, both morally and financially. She didn’t always back up her comments with documentation, though she usually cited sources in the text. In the last chapter that I didn’t read, she covered the “what we can do about it.”
|Good Night, Mr. Tom. Michelle Magorian
About a young evacuee, William, from London to the country during World War II. He lands in the home of an old widower, Tom, who is soured against life because his young wife and child died nearly 40 years ago. Willie, or William or Will, depending on who’s speaking to him, is small, frightened, and bruised. Tom perceives the problem quickly and with his own quiet ways, helps William gain confidence. It was a good read. It is listed as a teen book.
November
A Lantern in Her Hand. Bess Streeter Aldrich
I’d borrowed this book from the library before, perused it, and decided I didn’t really want to read it. Someone recommended it again so I borrowed it again and read it. Boy, am I glad I did. It was a really great book. About dreams, goals, mother-love and mother-sacrifice, about time and youth and age. The book follows Abbie Mackenzie Deal from youth and her move from Illinois to Iowa, then from Iowa to Nebraska as a young pioneer wife and mother, and on to her later years. A wonderful book! This book is definitely worth rereading! Quotes below.
Abbie’s observation of Nebraska’s prairie grass as she travelled by wagon when a young wife and mother: “Blow, . . . wave, . . . ripple, . . . dip. . . .” (p. 69, top)
On becoming the mother of her second child: “And now, Abbie’s love was divided between two babies. No, that is not true. There is no division nor subtraction in the heart-arithmetic of a good mother. There are only addition and multiplication.” (p. 42, paragraph 4)
In response to a son who moved to Alaska, “Abbie would stop in her work and utter a prayer for him,—and, sent as it were from the bow of a mother’s watchful care, bound by the cord of a mother’s love, the little winged arrow on its flight must have reached Some one,—Somewhere. (p. 204, paragraph 2)
“And now, Abbie, thinking of what the girl had just read [that love is like a hammer], to her, returned thoughtfull [sic], ‘You can’t describe love, Kathie and you can’t define it. Only it goes with you all your life. I think that love is more like a light that you carry. At first childish happiness keeps it lighted and after that romance. Then motherhood lights it and then duty . . . and maybe after that sorrow. You wouldn’t think that sorrow could be a light would you, dearie? But it can. And then after that, service lights it. Yes. . . . I think that is what love is to a woman . . . a lantern in her hand.” (p. 255-56, the paragraph between)
When asked what she was thinking by a granddaughter, she said, "'That your life is like a field-glass, Laura. When you look into the one end, the landscape is dwarfed and far away,—when you look into the other, it looms large as though it were near at hand. Things that happened seventy years ago seem like yesterday. But, when I was a girl, eighty years seemed too remote to contemplate. And now, it has passed. The story is written.’” (p. 278, paragraph 6)
December
|The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. John Boyne
This is the story of Bruno, a 9-year-old boy living in Berlin during WWII until his father, a commander in the Nazi army, moves the family to a house near a prison camp. Bruno approaches the barbed wire fence and becomes friends with one of the boys on the other side. Good story. Very poignant. I saw the movie before I finished the book. The movie was excellent, though it doesn’t exactly follow all the details in the book. Both are worth the time to read/see.
Love & Respect. The Love She Most Desires. The Respect He Desperately Needs. Emerson Eggerichs
His pretense is that a wife must give her husband unconditional respect in order for him to give her unconditional love. Interesting book, not sure how I feel about it or whether I agree.
What a husband should give (do for) his wife (acronym COUPLE): closeness, openness, understanding, peacemaking, loyalty, and esteem
What a wife should see (appreciate) in her husband (acronym CHAIRS): conquest, hierarchy, authority, insight, relationship, sexuality.
White Orchids. Grace Livingston Hill
Camilla, a young woman of little means but high ideals, meets Jeffrey, a young man of great means and kindness. They like each other but Camilla believes a relationship wouldn’t work out because they are of different worlds -- both by income and by faith in God. Very old-fashioned but I liked it. Written in 1935.
Merle’s Door. Lessons from a Freethinking Dog. Ted Kerasote
I LOVE this book! It is wonderful. A lot about Merle (who, in some ways, has Airedale-like personality and traits) and a little about dog behavior. I suppose some folks say “talking” for your dog is anthropomorphic, but I could understand exactly how Ted understood Merle because I believe I also understand (& understood) our Airedales.
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Thursday, December 31, 2009
Book List, 2009
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Book List, 2008
January
The Wednesday Letters. Jason F. Wright
Learning to forgive in a family situation....
Child of the Mist. Kathleen Morgan
Anne MacGregor, an herbal healer, is handfasted to widower Niall Campbell in 1564 in Scotland. Two different clans at war; a traitor trying to kill Niall and take over the clan; accusations that Anne is a witch....
Where Women Create. Inspiring Work Spaces of Extraordinary Women. Jo Packham
Lovely. Kitty Bartholomew, Anna Corba, Dena Fishbein, Sandra Evertson, more.
Garden People. The Photographs of Valerie Finnis. Ursula Buchan
What a lovely book! Valerie was a gardener in England from about the mid 1920s through about the turn of the century. She was also a photographer. The book is filled with her photographs (all exceptional!) And stories about the people in the photographs and a little about Valerie herself. Wonderful book.
Joseph Cornell: Secrets in a Box. Alison Baverstock (an Adventures in Art series book)
Great close-up photographs of some of Cornell’s works; great explanations about his work and the origins of his work; thoughts about looking at his art; plus a little biographical information and some photos of him. A short 24 pages, but the photos of his work are wonderful! Does not include information how he created his art.
February
|One of Each. Mary Ann Hoberman, illustrated by Marjorie Priceman
A children’s picture book. Oliver Tolliver looks like a stylized Airedale. He lives alone and is quite satisfied with his situation until he brings a friend to visit. With only one of each object, he realizes he doesn’t have enough for his friend too. Cute story. Very colorful paintings.
A Midwife’s Tale. The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812. Laurel Thatcher Ulrich.
Martha Ballard was 50 in 1785 when she started her diary. She wrote daily, usually just a few sentences – always about the weather; usually about her comings and goings; the births and deaths attended; her house and garden work; and sometimes about the events in the community around her. I love the interpretations and discussion which follow the diary entries in each chapter. The author adds lots of information and insight.
I think Martha Ballard is a hero to me. She was such a faithful woman. She served so many people in so many ways. She was still digging in her garden starting new beds and planting until she was 76, a year before she died! I think she was an amazing woman.
It was interesting to read about her daily activities and to notice how she spoke and wrote (hors, shee, workd, fatagud, brot, etc.). No standardized spelling in those days!
I love this book!
From the jacket cover: “Martha Ballard’s diary coolly notes her adventures–setting out in ‘a doleful storm’ or waist-high in snow, making perilous river crossings, riding miles alone through back roads (‘the hors Blundereed & I fell & hurt me’) to help usher infants into the world or treat a variety of ills from the colic to scarlet fevers. She records at the same time the comings and goings, pleasures and conflicts, of her household (her surveyor-miller husband, her children before their marriages, usually a hired girl) and her town. She succors her husband in debtor’s jail. She helps her daughters with their babies. She worries about her violent son. She manages a bevy of weavers, brews beer, makes vinegar from pumpkin parings, pulls flax, barters, doctors her cow and lamb, cooks, bakes, grows twenty kinds of vegetables and fruits and countless medicinal herbs-–the roster of work accomplished is luxuriant and dizzying-–and rushes off in the black of night to her midwife’s task.”
March
Stargirl. Jerry Spinelli
A teen/y.a. book. Told in the first person by Leo, an 11th grader, about a new girl at school, Stargirl, who is unusual, individual, non-conformist, slightly eccentric -- but she’s always thinking of and doing for others. Of course, she’s not accepted at school. She likes Leo and Leo realizes he likes her. But he would like her better if she were “normal.” I especially liked the following exchange between the two. They are discussing her practice of giving gifts and cards to people she doesn’t know without signing the cards. Leo is speaking.
I said, “Why don’t you leave a card or something with your name on it?”
The question surprised her. “Why should I?”
Her question surprised me. “Well, I don’t know, it’s just the way people do things. They expect it. They get a gift, they expect to know where it came from.”
“Is that important?”
“Yeah, I guess–“
[He suddenly realizes a surprise gift left on his doorstep with an unsigned card a year or so earlier was from her, and there’s a brief exchange about it.]
“Where were we?” she said.
“Getting credit,” I said.
“What about it?”
“Well, it’s nice to get credit.”
The spokes of her rear wheel spun behind the curtain of her long skirt. She looked like a photograph from a hundred years ago. She turned her wide eyes on me. “Is it?” she said.
Coming Through the Blizzard: A Christmas Story. Eileen Spinelli
I didn’t much like the drawings or the story.
|Three Pebbles and a Song. Eileen Spinelli; D.S. Schindler, illus.
A cute story about a mouse family preparing for winter. They all gather food and supplies except the little boy, who gathers only pebbles for juggling, a song, and a dance.
|When Mama Comes Home Tonight. Eileen Spinelli; Jane Dyer, illus.
What a great, comforting book for a little child. Wonderful illustrations of a red-haired, curly-headed, sweet-cheeked child: pat-a-cake; face-to-identical-face with Mama; in the bathtub; snuggled on Mama’s lap while she reads a story; asleep with thumb in mouth; nestled in bed.
Roses for Mama. Janette Oke
When both parents die, the two oldest children, Thomas and Angela, are left to care for their younger siblings, Louise, Derek, and Sara. Told through the eyes of Angela, who, in trying to raise her younger siblings, tries to do as her mother would do. I especially appreciated the following quote: “Never despise a task – any task. In doing any job, you are either creating something or bettering something.”
Love, Stargirl. Jerri Spinelli
A continuation of the story of Stargirl, written in the first person in the form of a letter (or journal entries) to Leo. Good, but not as good as Stargirl. She lives in Pennsylvania now, homeschools, and, though she misses and continues to love Leo, she meets other people and is involved in life. She an her agoraphobic friend, Betty Lou, are discussing how to be comfortable with lives of uncertainty. Stargirl thinks Betty Lou has an answer.... Betty Lou’s advice:
“Ah, yes, the answer. Live today. There.”
“Live today.”
“Yes. Live today. Not yesterday. Not tomorrow. Just today. Inhabit your moments. Don’t rent them out to tomorrow. Do you know what you’re doing when you spend a moment wondering how things are going to turn out with Perry [Stargirl’s current boy interest, but it could be anything not in our present].”
“What am I doing?”
“You’re cheating yourself out of today. Today is calling to you, trying to get your attention, but you’re stuck on tomorrow, and today trickles away like water down a drain. You wake up the next morning and that today that you wasted is gone forever. It’s now yesterday. Some of those moments may have had wonderful things in store for you, but now you’ll never know.”
Milkweed. Jerry Spinelli
Definitely a book for mature young adults. Remembrances of a young boy’s experiences in the Warsaw Ghetto. Poignant, alarming, touching, frightening. I almost quit reading it several times, but something kept pulling me back. I suspect it is a true story, presented as fiction instead of a biography. I’m glad I finished it. Really, it’s a book about courage, about keeping going, about living with the past. A good book, but not for the faint of heart.
April
Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman. An Assembly Such as This. Pamela Aiden
So, this is Pride and Prejudice from Darcy’s point of view. Very interesting. There are two more volumes to the series. I expect to read them in quick succession.
Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman. Duty and Desire. Pamela Aiden
This is book two in the series. It takes place “away from” Elizabeth Bennet, while Darcy is wife-seeking. He realizes he loves Elizabeth, but argues with himself about his duty to his name, vs. his desire for Elizabeth. Excellent but not as good as the first.
Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman. These Three Remain. Pamela Aiden
The third and last in the Darcy series. Really good, insightful, interesting. Actually, I didn’t want to put it down, much to Brenna’s dismay. It was longer than either of the other two and I was anxious to finish it.
Second-Hand Dog. How to Turn Yours into a First-Rate Pet. Carol Lea Benjamin
I think this is the very best primer on human interaction with dogs. Chapters include: how dogs learn; an alpha primer (because you must be in charge); what your dog needs (both physical and emotional needs); dog training (including sit, stay, come, heel); what to do when problems persist; and professional secrets. It’s just a very excellent beginner book. Buy it!
May
Before Green Gables. Budge Wilson
This is a prequel to Anne of Green Gables and I think it’s excellent. The style is a little different than L.M. Montgomery’s, but the story is very believable. Great fun. It makes me want to read the Anne... books again. I listened to part of it on tape, finished it by reading.
A Perfect Mess. The hidden Benefits of Disorder. Eric Abrahamson & David H. Freedman
This was an audio book read by Scott Brick. It took me several months to listen to it while driving to and from various places. A broad discussion of mess in a huge variety of places and how it may be a hidden benefit. Very interesting.
The Last Lecture. Randy Pausch with Jeffrey Zaslow
Lessons for living from a man dying of cancer. Excellent!
June
A Heart Like His. Making Space for God’s Love in Your Life. Virginia H. Pearce
Ooooh, excellent book. I love how she suggests an experiment – just to notice where your heart is, and then progress from there. Very non-threatening. Also very effective. She shares experiences of a group of women who try this experiment and explains why it’s so important to have a heart like His. Probably worth reading repeatedly until the message sinks into my being and becomes a part of me!
The Enchanted April. Elizabeth von Arnim. Read by Nadia May
I think this is one of my favorite fiction books! Magical. I think this is the second time I’ve listened to it on tape. Love it!
August
My Ántonia. Willa Cather
What a lovely, quiet book. Told in the first person, Jim Burden recalls his years as a young boy growing up in Nebraska with his grandparents. He remembers a young Bohemian neighbor girl named Ántonia, her family, and other immigrants from various countries. To me it seems to point out the importance of remembering people who touch our lives and whose memories live with us through the years.
September
Little Heathens. Hard Times and High Spirits on an Iowa Farm During the Great Depression. Mildred Armstrong Kalish
Such a fun book! Lots and lots of great information about making do. Good ideas even for today. I enjoyed Mildred’s writing style and the experiences she shared. She included recipes, homemaking tips, etc. Worth the read. One of the things she said (p. 54) was that she grew up thinking that certain expressions were one word: agoodwoman, hardearnedmoney, agoodhardworker, alittleheathen, demonrum, agoodwoolshirt. She received a good, honest, upright upbringing.
October
Mutant Message Down Under. Marlo Morgan
The author says the events in the story actually happened but she chose to publish it as fiction because so many people didn’t believe her story. She was to be honored at an event in Australia. Instead, she was taken on a 3-month walkabout with Aborigines. She tells some of the things she learned. Very interesting. Lots of interesting concepts and ideas. A quote on p. 75: “We automatically give to each person we meet, but we choose what we give. Our words, our actions, must consciously set the stage for the life we wish to lead.” Quote about unbirthdays on p. 164: “They believe that the purpose for the passage of time is to allow a person to become better, wiser, to express more and more of one’s beingness. So if you are a better person this year than last, and only you know that for certain, then you call for the party. When you say you are ready, everyone honors that.” Lots more interesting ideas. Definitely worth the read. (Though I have to admit that I don’t agree with everything in the book.)
Garden Junk. Mary Randolph Carter
The author photographed the book, and it’s full of fabulous photographs. Her intent was to focus on the “junk” and not on the environment of the junk. Some of the chapters include the topics tools’ gold, flower power, from Arles with love (sunflowers), pot luck, pot holders, the wheel thing, old paint (painted furniture, mostly), garden bones (fences, mostly), floral fakes, gimme shelter (hats), and garden sculpture (bird baths, angels, etc.). Sidebars tell how to clean old rusty tools, how to “olden” sculpture, how to repaint, how to build a free-standing, outdoor porch/room, how to make a tent, etc. I liked this book quite a lot. She has a lot of verve and definitely an appreciation for old and imperfect objects. A good book for inspiration when money is limited.
November
Mrs. Greenthumbs Plows Ahead. Five Steps to the Drop-Dead Gorgeous Garden of Your Dreams. Cassandra Danz
About cottage gardens. She gives fairly specific directions for making/building/doing some things: wattle fence (p. 9); permanent walkway/path (p. 35-39); rusticated arbor (p. 42); digging a hole without ruining your back (p. 166). She advocates packing the border (that is, planting perennials over bulbs for a successive bloom); and planting in drifts, that is, putting several of one kind of flower together instead of spreading them out along a border so that there’s enough of the plant together to have a presence. She talks about mulch varieties and explains how to use “the old newspaper trick” (p. 70) to get rid of plants, then cut a hole and plant in the hole without moving the newspaper. She explains about proportions (too mathematical for me, especially because I didn’t have a specific place in mind while I was reading). Perennials. Climbers. Shrubs. Gardens based on direction of sun (east-facing garden, etc.). Gardening to have flowers all season. Getting rid of bugs (pp. 161-164). Color: which colors do what to other colors; which plants look/don’t look great together, with plant suggestions for color gardens. Definitely NOT a reference book, but it has helpful information.
The Trees. Conrad Richter
Poignant story - and the first in a series of three. Early America in Ohio, probably about 1800-1825. No date is given but from the descriptions the story happens before there are many people here. The Luckett family moves to Ohio, the mother dies and the oldest daughter, Sayward, is left to take care of her 4 younger siblings and her father.
At one point in the story, Sayward’s younger brother, Wyitt, arranges to buy a gun to shoot meat for his family. The following happens after he comes home after a dangerous encounter:
“Sayward sopped the wet rag over his [Wyitt’s] hard, naked, young body. When the caked blood washed off, you could see deep cuts in plenty places. He would carry scars and welts from this. Oh, she knew a long time whom he took after. He’d grow up a hunter like his pappy, following the woods, moving on with the game. If it was in him, it would come out. There was no stopping such kind.
“She could see him in her mind, yonder through the ups and downs of life, skinning deer and trap-drowned mink and otter, giving a rap over the head to foxes that hid in bushes ashamed to be caught and to coons that sat up as big as you please on a log as if they didn’t have a trap and clog hanging to one paw. Snared panthers would shed real tears when he pulled out his hunting knife, and beaver would swim out of their smashed houses and find he had left no ice for them to come up and breathe under. No, they would have to come out on the bank where he would take them by a back foot to bleed them. If he took them by a front food, they would bite him.
“That shock of sandy hair would be farther down over his shoulders then and his young face that had hardly fuzz on it as yet would be covered thick with a sandy beard. His buckskins would be bloody where he wiped his hands, and his hair would be full of nits. Not often would he wash, least of all his itchy feet. Where those feet would take him, a sister had no means of knowing and no business if she had. Didn’t Worth [Sayward’s father] say once he hadn’t seen his brothers after he was fourteen? And Jary [Sayward’s mother] and her sister never heard from each other again.
“She better wash him tender whilst she had the chance. Later she’d think of this many a time when he had gone off yonder with none perhaps but an Indian woman to tend him and a gray moose cow for milk. For all she’d know then, her brother Wyitt might as well be dead and buried, deep in some woods or plains she never saw and never would see.
“‘Now stand up to the fire and dry yourself warm,’ she told him. ‘I’ll git something on you till I fix you a new frock and leggins.’”
December
The Fields. Conrad Richter
This is the continuing story of Sayward (pronounced Saird) and her family. Married, with children. The land becomes fields. By the end of this book, there is a small town around her house. Excellent book. I think this series is excellent for social history for the genealogist! (I hope to finish The Town by the end of the year!)
The Town. Conrad Richter
I think Sayward Luckett Wheeler is one of my heroes! There is a quiet, sensible, almost primitive, wisdom about her – very down to earth. This book received the Pulitzer Prize in 1951. While the series takes place between the late 1700s and mid-1800's (through about the Civil War), the last book seems timely for today!
Sayward is the mother of 10 children, all alive at her death except one. Either at the end of The Fields or early in The Town she has several more children. The youngest is Chancey, a sickly boy. He’s catered to, receives extra attention, and has an easy life with little work or responsibility. In a word, he was “coddled,” as Sayward herself thought, though too late to make a difference in his life. Part of the story in this book revolves around Chancey and his dislike of work. As a youth and young adult, he disdains work and would rather not. In the Chapter 26, “The Flowering,” Chancey, Sayward, and her husband Portius, have a discussion about work.
“This spring he [Chancey] tried every excuse to get out of working in the lot and garden. When she held him to it, he cried out it was a disgrace. She was thunderstruck though she tried not to show it.
“‘Why is honest work a disgrace?’ she wanted to know.
“‘It’s all right for those who have to,’ he told her. ‘But you’re the richest woman in Americus and I’m your son and yet we have to go out and work like hired men in the field.’
“It came to her mind to say, I thought you said you weren’t my son, Chancey, but never would she cast that up to him. [As a child, Chancey believed and told others that Sayward and Portius were not his real parents.]
“‘Work’s the best thing we can do, Chancey,’ she said.
“‘Robert Owen didn’t think so and he was one of the greatest thinkers of our age. He said if you make a man happy, you make him virtuous. That’s his whole system---making people happy.’
“‘We want to make you happy, too, Chancey,’ she said mildly.
“‘That’s what you say. But what you mean is you want me to work and be happy. You’re so used to working all your life, Mama, you can’t live without working. You wouldn’t know what to do with yourself. Thank God I’ve never been spoiled like that.’
“‘Spoiled?’ Sayward swallowed.
“‘Yes, you won’t even have a hired girl in this big house. You insist on doing all the work yourself. Don’t you understand, Mama, there are more important things than work in this world?’
“‘What for instance?’
“‘Well, Robert Owen said that one of the main occupations of working people should be play. He practised it, too. He arranged in his factories that the laborers could dance, relax, talk and sing and amuse themselves all they wanted. He was the real pioneer, Mama, not you and the settlers. Now phalanxes are taking up his revolutionary ideas. Every member of the phalanx is going to be equal. Nobody can order another around. Everybody can choose his own work and do as little of it as he wants to. That’s in the constitution.’
“‘If everybody can pick the easy work, who’ll do the hard and ugly work?’ Sayward asked meekly.
“‘Of course there’ll have to be a little repulsive labor at first,’ Chancey admitted. ‘But progress will do away with all toil and labor in time. Meanwhile those who do that work will get a little more credit against their rent and meals. They’ll also get a share of the profits. Everybody else will share alike. There’ll be no rich people and no poor people, just brothers and sisters. And everybody will have security and happiness.’
“‘Everybody but your mother,’ Portius put in. ‘I can’t conceive of her being happy there.’
“‘Not if I had to work to make up for all those lazy shirkers who wanted to dance and play and have a good time all the time!’ Sayward agreed bitterly. ‘I’d sooner go out on the desert with savages and rattlesnakes for my brothers and sisters and live my own life and get paid for my own labor. Such schemes never worked in this world and never will, but the’re always cracked people getting born who try to get something for nothing.’ ...
“‘I don’t see our grandchildren coming in the world with didies on now that things have changed and folks are so well off like you say,’ she retorted. ‘There always was work and there always will be. Some folks just never want to do any. Even those who had to slave and sweat the most to get their heads above water now say they don’t want their young ones to have to go through what they had to. They’d never reckon to train a young horse by letting him stand in the stable or pasture. They know mighty well the minute they’d put him in a plow or on the road, he’d sweat his self to pieces. He’d be too soft. But that’s the way they coddle their own flesh and blood. Well, what they don’t learn their young ones about work and hardship, life will learn them later on.’
“‘That’s a cruel and outmoded thing to say,’ Portius declared. ‘People are more enlightened now in the nineteenth century.’
“‘Robert Owens says, Papa,’ Chancey put in, ‘relieve the people of want, and you relieve them of evil and unhappiness.’
“‘Bosh and nonsense, Chancey!’ his mother flared. ‘Making a body happy by taking away what made him unhappy will never keep him happy long. The more you give him, the more he’ll want and the weaker he’ll get for not having to scratch for his self. The happiest folks I ever knew were those who raised their own potatoes, corn and garden stuff the first spring out here. They’d been half starved but they found out they could get the best of their own troubles. They wouldn’t have traded that first sack of meal from their own corn for half of Kentuck. That kind made good neighbors, too, and mighty handy to have around in time of trouble. If making your young ones work off their own troubles is old-fashioned, and out of date, then the good Lord is out of date because that’s the way He lets us sink or swim with our troubles.’
And then later, in Chapter 33, “The Witness Tree,” Sayward ponders being the last of her generation alive....
“...Those wild shaggy mossy oldtime butts [trees in Ohio’s first-growth forest] would be out of place in Americus today as would the shaggy oldtime folks she had known. Yes, and she was out of place her own self, living her old life like she did in her day, taking care of herself at her age [80-something] and doing her own work, giving no thought if she lived or died. That’s one reason why her children wanted to move her. Younger folks couldn’t stand seeing her do it. It was too hard on their ‘narve strings.’
“What gave folks ‘narve strings’ today and made them soft so they couldn’t stand what folks could when she was young? Oh, she was no learned judge like Portius, just an old woodsy woman who hadn’t learned to read and write till her own young ones taught her. Her eyes were not so good any more and her mind would lately forget. But she had her own notions. It had taken a wild and rough land to raise the big butts she saw when first she came here, and she reckoned it took a rough and hard life to breed the kind of folks she knew as a young woman. If you made it easy for folks, it seemed like their hardihood had to pay for it. Didn’t she know? Which one of her young ones was it she had raised the softest, done the most for, coaxed and prayed along, saved from bad things one time after the other? Wasn’t it the same one that now could take life and his country the least and wanted to change God’s world over from top to bottom? It was the same with sick folks, Sayward noticed. Once they had been taken care of too long, they got to feeling the world ought to be changed and softened, centered towards themselves.
“But why in God’s name did soft and weak folks want to make the whole world over like they were for? In her time in the woods, everybody she knew was egged on to be his own special self. He could live and think like he wanted to and no two humans you met up with were alike. Each had his own particular beliefs and his reasons for owning to them. Folks were a joy to talk to then, for all were different. Even the simple-minded were so original in their notions they either made you laugh or gave you pause. But folks in Americus today seemed mighty tiresome and getting more so. If you saw one, you saw most. If you heard one talk, it’s likely you heard the rest. They were racked on living like everybody else, according to the fashion, and if you were so queer and outlandish as to go your own way and do what you liked, it bothered their ‘narve strings’ so they were liable to lock you up in one of their newfangled asylums or take you home where they could hold you down to their way of doing, like Libby wanted to do.
“What was the world coming to and what hearty pleasures folks today missed out of life! One bag of meal her pap said, used to make a whole family rejoice! Now folks came ungrateful from the store, grumbling they had to carry such a heavy market basket. Was that the way this great new country of hers was going to go? The easier they made life, the weaker and sicker the race had to get? Once a majority of the men got weak and soft, what weak, harmful ways would they vote the country into then? Well, her pap’s generation could get down on their knees and thank the Almighty they lived and died when they did. How would they ever have come and settled this wild country if they said to each other, ‘Ain’t you afeard?’ How would her pappy have fetched them the long way out here on foot if he’d kept asking all the time, ‘Are ye all right? How do ye feel? Do ye reckon ye kin make it?’ No, those old time folks she knew were scared of nothing, or if they were, they didn’t say so. They knew they ran bad risks moving into Indian country, but they had to die some time. They might as well live as they pleased and let others bury them when the time came. Now Libby’s generation, it seemed, lived mostly to study and fret about ailing and dying.”
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The Wednesday Letters. Jason F. Wright
Learning to forgive in a family situation....
Child of the Mist. Kathleen Morgan
Anne MacGregor, an herbal healer, is handfasted to widower Niall Campbell in 1564 in Scotland. Two different clans at war; a traitor trying to kill Niall and take over the clan; accusations that Anne is a witch....
Where Women Create. Inspiring Work Spaces of Extraordinary Women. Jo Packham
Lovely. Kitty Bartholomew, Anna Corba, Dena Fishbein, Sandra Evertson, more.
Garden People. The Photographs of Valerie Finnis. Ursula Buchan
What a lovely book! Valerie was a gardener in England from about the mid 1920s through about the turn of the century. She was also a photographer. The book is filled with her photographs (all exceptional!) And stories about the people in the photographs and a little about Valerie herself. Wonderful book.
Joseph Cornell: Secrets in a Box. Alison Baverstock (an Adventures in Art series book)
Great close-up photographs of some of Cornell’s works; great explanations about his work and the origins of his work; thoughts about looking at his art; plus a little biographical information and some photos of him. A short 24 pages, but the photos of his work are wonderful! Does not include information how he created his art.
February
|One of Each. Mary Ann Hoberman, illustrated by Marjorie Priceman
A children’s picture book. Oliver Tolliver looks like a stylized Airedale. He lives alone and is quite satisfied with his situation until he brings a friend to visit. With only one of each object, he realizes he doesn’t have enough for his friend too. Cute story. Very colorful paintings.
A Midwife’s Tale. The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812. Laurel Thatcher Ulrich.
Martha Ballard was 50 in 1785 when she started her diary. She wrote daily, usually just a few sentences – always about the weather; usually about her comings and goings; the births and deaths attended; her house and garden work; and sometimes about the events in the community around her. I love the interpretations and discussion which follow the diary entries in each chapter. The author adds lots of information and insight.
I think Martha Ballard is a hero to me. She was such a faithful woman. She served so many people in so many ways. She was still digging in her garden starting new beds and planting until she was 76, a year before she died! I think she was an amazing woman.
It was interesting to read about her daily activities and to notice how she spoke and wrote (hors, shee, workd, fatagud, brot, etc.). No standardized spelling in those days!
I love this book!
From the jacket cover: “Martha Ballard’s diary coolly notes her adventures–setting out in ‘a doleful storm’ or waist-high in snow, making perilous river crossings, riding miles alone through back roads (‘the hors Blundereed & I fell & hurt me’) to help usher infants into the world or treat a variety of ills from the colic to scarlet fevers. She records at the same time the comings and goings, pleasures and conflicts, of her household (her surveyor-miller husband, her children before their marriages, usually a hired girl) and her town. She succors her husband in debtor’s jail. She helps her daughters with their babies. She worries about her violent son. She manages a bevy of weavers, brews beer, makes vinegar from pumpkin parings, pulls flax, barters, doctors her cow and lamb, cooks, bakes, grows twenty kinds of vegetables and fruits and countless medicinal herbs-–the roster of work accomplished is luxuriant and dizzying-–and rushes off in the black of night to her midwife’s task.”
March
Stargirl. Jerry Spinelli
A teen/y.a. book. Told in the first person by Leo, an 11th grader, about a new girl at school, Stargirl, who is unusual, individual, non-conformist, slightly eccentric -- but she’s always thinking of and doing for others. Of course, she’s not accepted at school. She likes Leo and Leo realizes he likes her. But he would like her better if she were “normal.” I especially liked the following exchange between the two. They are discussing her practice of giving gifts and cards to people she doesn’t know without signing the cards. Leo is speaking.
I said, “Why don’t you leave a card or something with your name on it?”
The question surprised her. “Why should I?”
Her question surprised me. “Well, I don’t know, it’s just the way people do things. They expect it. They get a gift, they expect to know where it came from.”
“Is that important?”
“Yeah, I guess–“
[He suddenly realizes a surprise gift left on his doorstep with an unsigned card a year or so earlier was from her, and there’s a brief exchange about it.]
“Where were we?” she said.
“Getting credit,” I said.
“What about it?”
“Well, it’s nice to get credit.”
The spokes of her rear wheel spun behind the curtain of her long skirt. She looked like a photograph from a hundred years ago. She turned her wide eyes on me. “Is it?” she said.
Coming Through the Blizzard: A Christmas Story. Eileen Spinelli
I didn’t much like the drawings or the story.
|Three Pebbles and a Song. Eileen Spinelli; D.S. Schindler, illus.
A cute story about a mouse family preparing for winter. They all gather food and supplies except the little boy, who gathers only pebbles for juggling, a song, and a dance.
|When Mama Comes Home Tonight. Eileen Spinelli; Jane Dyer, illus.
What a great, comforting book for a little child. Wonderful illustrations of a red-haired, curly-headed, sweet-cheeked child: pat-a-cake; face-to-identical-face with Mama; in the bathtub; snuggled on Mama’s lap while she reads a story; asleep with thumb in mouth; nestled in bed.
Roses for Mama. Janette Oke
When both parents die, the two oldest children, Thomas and Angela, are left to care for their younger siblings, Louise, Derek, and Sara. Told through the eyes of Angela, who, in trying to raise her younger siblings, tries to do as her mother would do. I especially appreciated the following quote: “Never despise a task – any task. In doing any job, you are either creating something or bettering something.”
Love, Stargirl. Jerri Spinelli
A continuation of the story of Stargirl, written in the first person in the form of a letter (or journal entries) to Leo. Good, but not as good as Stargirl. She lives in Pennsylvania now, homeschools, and, though she misses and continues to love Leo, she meets other people and is involved in life. She an her agoraphobic friend, Betty Lou, are discussing how to be comfortable with lives of uncertainty. Stargirl thinks Betty Lou has an answer.... Betty Lou’s advice:
“Ah, yes, the answer. Live today. There.”
“Live today.”
“Yes. Live today. Not yesterday. Not tomorrow. Just today. Inhabit your moments. Don’t rent them out to tomorrow. Do you know what you’re doing when you spend a moment wondering how things are going to turn out with Perry [Stargirl’s current boy interest, but it could be anything not in our present].”
“What am I doing?”
“You’re cheating yourself out of today. Today is calling to you, trying to get your attention, but you’re stuck on tomorrow, and today trickles away like water down a drain. You wake up the next morning and that today that you wasted is gone forever. It’s now yesterday. Some of those moments may have had wonderful things in store for you, but now you’ll never know.”
Milkweed. Jerry Spinelli
Definitely a book for mature young adults. Remembrances of a young boy’s experiences in the Warsaw Ghetto. Poignant, alarming, touching, frightening. I almost quit reading it several times, but something kept pulling me back. I suspect it is a true story, presented as fiction instead of a biography. I’m glad I finished it. Really, it’s a book about courage, about keeping going, about living with the past. A good book, but not for the faint of heart.
April
Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman. An Assembly Such as This. Pamela Aiden
So, this is Pride and Prejudice from Darcy’s point of view. Very interesting. There are two more volumes to the series. I expect to read them in quick succession.
Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman. Duty and Desire. Pamela Aiden
This is book two in the series. It takes place “away from” Elizabeth Bennet, while Darcy is wife-seeking. He realizes he loves Elizabeth, but argues with himself about his duty to his name, vs. his desire for Elizabeth. Excellent but not as good as the first.
Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman. These Three Remain. Pamela Aiden
The third and last in the Darcy series. Really good, insightful, interesting. Actually, I didn’t want to put it down, much to Brenna’s dismay. It was longer than either of the other two and I was anxious to finish it.
Second-Hand Dog. How to Turn Yours into a First-Rate Pet. Carol Lea Benjamin
I think this is the very best primer on human interaction with dogs. Chapters include: how dogs learn; an alpha primer (because you must be in charge); what your dog needs (both physical and emotional needs); dog training (including sit, stay, come, heel); what to do when problems persist; and professional secrets. It’s just a very excellent beginner book. Buy it!
May
Before Green Gables. Budge Wilson
This is a prequel to Anne of Green Gables and I think it’s excellent. The style is a little different than L.M. Montgomery’s, but the story is very believable. Great fun. It makes me want to read the Anne... books again. I listened to part of it on tape, finished it by reading.
A Perfect Mess. The hidden Benefits of Disorder. Eric Abrahamson & David H. Freedman
This was an audio book read by Scott Brick. It took me several months to listen to it while driving to and from various places. A broad discussion of mess in a huge variety of places and how it may be a hidden benefit. Very interesting.
The Last Lecture. Randy Pausch with Jeffrey Zaslow
Lessons for living from a man dying of cancer. Excellent!
June
A Heart Like His. Making Space for God’s Love in Your Life. Virginia H. Pearce
Ooooh, excellent book. I love how she suggests an experiment – just to notice where your heart is, and then progress from there. Very non-threatening. Also very effective. She shares experiences of a group of women who try this experiment and explains why it’s so important to have a heart like His. Probably worth reading repeatedly until the message sinks into my being and becomes a part of me!
The Enchanted April. Elizabeth von Arnim. Read by Nadia May
I think this is one of my favorite fiction books! Magical. I think this is the second time I’ve listened to it on tape. Love it!
August
My Ántonia. Willa Cather
What a lovely, quiet book. Told in the first person, Jim Burden recalls his years as a young boy growing up in Nebraska with his grandparents. He remembers a young Bohemian neighbor girl named Ántonia, her family, and other immigrants from various countries. To me it seems to point out the importance of remembering people who touch our lives and whose memories live with us through the years.
September
Little Heathens. Hard Times and High Spirits on an Iowa Farm During the Great Depression. Mildred Armstrong Kalish
Such a fun book! Lots and lots of great information about making do. Good ideas even for today. I enjoyed Mildred’s writing style and the experiences she shared. She included recipes, homemaking tips, etc. Worth the read. One of the things she said (p. 54) was that she grew up thinking that certain expressions were one word: agoodwoman, hardearnedmoney, agoodhardworker, alittleheathen, demonrum, agoodwoolshirt. She received a good, honest, upright upbringing.
October
Mutant Message Down Under. Marlo Morgan
The author says the events in the story actually happened but she chose to publish it as fiction because so many people didn’t believe her story. She was to be honored at an event in Australia. Instead, she was taken on a 3-month walkabout with Aborigines. She tells some of the things she learned. Very interesting. Lots of interesting concepts and ideas. A quote on p. 75: “We automatically give to each person we meet, but we choose what we give. Our words, our actions, must consciously set the stage for the life we wish to lead.” Quote about unbirthdays on p. 164: “They believe that the purpose for the passage of time is to allow a person to become better, wiser, to express more and more of one’s beingness. So if you are a better person this year than last, and only you know that for certain, then you call for the party. When you say you are ready, everyone honors that.” Lots more interesting ideas. Definitely worth the read. (Though I have to admit that I don’t agree with everything in the book.)
Garden Junk. Mary Randolph Carter
The author photographed the book, and it’s full of fabulous photographs. Her intent was to focus on the “junk” and not on the environment of the junk. Some of the chapters include the topics tools’ gold, flower power, from Arles with love (sunflowers), pot luck, pot holders, the wheel thing, old paint (painted furniture, mostly), garden bones (fences, mostly), floral fakes, gimme shelter (hats), and garden sculpture (bird baths, angels, etc.). Sidebars tell how to clean old rusty tools, how to “olden” sculpture, how to repaint, how to build a free-standing, outdoor porch/room, how to make a tent, etc. I liked this book quite a lot. She has a lot of verve and definitely an appreciation for old and imperfect objects. A good book for inspiration when money is limited.
November
Mrs. Greenthumbs Plows Ahead. Five Steps to the Drop-Dead Gorgeous Garden of Your Dreams. Cassandra Danz
About cottage gardens. She gives fairly specific directions for making/building/doing some things: wattle fence (p. 9); permanent walkway/path (p. 35-39); rusticated arbor (p. 42); digging a hole without ruining your back (p. 166). She advocates packing the border (that is, planting perennials over bulbs for a successive bloom); and planting in drifts, that is, putting several of one kind of flower together instead of spreading them out along a border so that there’s enough of the plant together to have a presence. She talks about mulch varieties and explains how to use “the old newspaper trick” (p. 70) to get rid of plants, then cut a hole and plant in the hole without moving the newspaper. She explains about proportions (too mathematical for me, especially because I didn’t have a specific place in mind while I was reading). Perennials. Climbers. Shrubs. Gardens based on direction of sun (east-facing garden, etc.). Gardening to have flowers all season. Getting rid of bugs (pp. 161-164). Color: which colors do what to other colors; which plants look/don’t look great together, with plant suggestions for color gardens. Definitely NOT a reference book, but it has helpful information.
The Trees. Conrad Richter
Poignant story - and the first in a series of three. Early America in Ohio, probably about 1800-1825. No date is given but from the descriptions the story happens before there are many people here. The Luckett family moves to Ohio, the mother dies and the oldest daughter, Sayward, is left to take care of her 4 younger siblings and her father.
At one point in the story, Sayward’s younger brother, Wyitt, arranges to buy a gun to shoot meat for his family. The following happens after he comes home after a dangerous encounter:
“Sayward sopped the wet rag over his [Wyitt’s] hard, naked, young body. When the caked blood washed off, you could see deep cuts in plenty places. He would carry scars and welts from this. Oh, she knew a long time whom he took after. He’d grow up a hunter like his pappy, following the woods, moving on with the game. If it was in him, it would come out. There was no stopping such kind.
“She could see him in her mind, yonder through the ups and downs of life, skinning deer and trap-drowned mink and otter, giving a rap over the head to foxes that hid in bushes ashamed to be caught and to coons that sat up as big as you please on a log as if they didn’t have a trap and clog hanging to one paw. Snared panthers would shed real tears when he pulled out his hunting knife, and beaver would swim out of their smashed houses and find he had left no ice for them to come up and breathe under. No, they would have to come out on the bank where he would take them by a back foot to bleed them. If he took them by a front food, they would bite him.
“That shock of sandy hair would be farther down over his shoulders then and his young face that had hardly fuzz on it as yet would be covered thick with a sandy beard. His buckskins would be bloody where he wiped his hands, and his hair would be full of nits. Not often would he wash, least of all his itchy feet. Where those feet would take him, a sister had no means of knowing and no business if she had. Didn’t Worth [Sayward’s father] say once he hadn’t seen his brothers after he was fourteen? And Jary [Sayward’s mother] and her sister never heard from each other again.
“She better wash him tender whilst she had the chance. Later she’d think of this many a time when he had gone off yonder with none perhaps but an Indian woman to tend him and a gray moose cow for milk. For all she’d know then, her brother Wyitt might as well be dead and buried, deep in some woods or plains she never saw and never would see.
“‘Now stand up to the fire and dry yourself warm,’ she told him. ‘I’ll git something on you till I fix you a new frock and leggins.’”
December
The Fields. Conrad Richter
This is the continuing story of Sayward (pronounced Saird) and her family. Married, with children. The land becomes fields. By the end of this book, there is a small town around her house. Excellent book. I think this series is excellent for social history for the genealogist! (I hope to finish The Town by the end of the year!)
The Town. Conrad Richter
I think Sayward Luckett Wheeler is one of my heroes! There is a quiet, sensible, almost primitive, wisdom about her – very down to earth. This book received the Pulitzer Prize in 1951. While the series takes place between the late 1700s and mid-1800's (through about the Civil War), the last book seems timely for today!
Sayward is the mother of 10 children, all alive at her death except one. Either at the end of The Fields or early in The Town she has several more children. The youngest is Chancey, a sickly boy. He’s catered to, receives extra attention, and has an easy life with little work or responsibility. In a word, he was “coddled,” as Sayward herself thought, though too late to make a difference in his life. Part of the story in this book revolves around Chancey and his dislike of work. As a youth and young adult, he disdains work and would rather not. In the Chapter 26, “The Flowering,” Chancey, Sayward, and her husband Portius, have a discussion about work.
“This spring he [Chancey] tried every excuse to get out of working in the lot and garden. When she held him to it, he cried out it was a disgrace. She was thunderstruck though she tried not to show it.
“‘Why is honest work a disgrace?’ she wanted to know.
“‘It’s all right for those who have to,’ he told her. ‘But you’re the richest woman in Americus and I’m your son and yet we have to go out and work like hired men in the field.’
“It came to her mind to say, I thought you said you weren’t my son, Chancey, but never would she cast that up to him. [As a child, Chancey believed and told others that Sayward and Portius were not his real parents.]
“‘Work’s the best thing we can do, Chancey,’ she said.
“‘Robert Owen didn’t think so and he was one of the greatest thinkers of our age. He said if you make a man happy, you make him virtuous. That’s his whole system---making people happy.’
“‘We want to make you happy, too, Chancey,’ she said mildly.
“‘That’s what you say. But what you mean is you want me to work and be happy. You’re so used to working all your life, Mama, you can’t live without working. You wouldn’t know what to do with yourself. Thank God I’ve never been spoiled like that.’
“‘Spoiled?’ Sayward swallowed.
“‘Yes, you won’t even have a hired girl in this big house. You insist on doing all the work yourself. Don’t you understand, Mama, there are more important things than work in this world?’
“‘What for instance?’
“‘Well, Robert Owen said that one of the main occupations of working people should be play. He practised it, too. He arranged in his factories that the laborers could dance, relax, talk and sing and amuse themselves all they wanted. He was the real pioneer, Mama, not you and the settlers. Now phalanxes are taking up his revolutionary ideas. Every member of the phalanx is going to be equal. Nobody can order another around. Everybody can choose his own work and do as little of it as he wants to. That’s in the constitution.’
“‘If everybody can pick the easy work, who’ll do the hard and ugly work?’ Sayward asked meekly.
“‘Of course there’ll have to be a little repulsive labor at first,’ Chancey admitted. ‘But progress will do away with all toil and labor in time. Meanwhile those who do that work will get a little more credit against their rent and meals. They’ll also get a share of the profits. Everybody else will share alike. There’ll be no rich people and no poor people, just brothers and sisters. And everybody will have security and happiness.’
“‘Everybody but your mother,’ Portius put in. ‘I can’t conceive of her being happy there.’
“‘Not if I had to work to make up for all those lazy shirkers who wanted to dance and play and have a good time all the time!’ Sayward agreed bitterly. ‘I’d sooner go out on the desert with savages and rattlesnakes for my brothers and sisters and live my own life and get paid for my own labor. Such schemes never worked in this world and never will, but the’re always cracked people getting born who try to get something for nothing.’ ...
“‘I don’t see our grandchildren coming in the world with didies on now that things have changed and folks are so well off like you say,’ she retorted. ‘There always was work and there always will be. Some folks just never want to do any. Even those who had to slave and sweat the most to get their heads above water now say they don’t want their young ones to have to go through what they had to. They’d never reckon to train a young horse by letting him stand in the stable or pasture. They know mighty well the minute they’d put him in a plow or on the road, he’d sweat his self to pieces. He’d be too soft. But that’s the way they coddle their own flesh and blood. Well, what they don’t learn their young ones about work and hardship, life will learn them later on.’
“‘That’s a cruel and outmoded thing to say,’ Portius declared. ‘People are more enlightened now in the nineteenth century.’
“‘Robert Owens says, Papa,’ Chancey put in, ‘relieve the people of want, and you relieve them of evil and unhappiness.’
“‘Bosh and nonsense, Chancey!’ his mother flared. ‘Making a body happy by taking away what made him unhappy will never keep him happy long. The more you give him, the more he’ll want and the weaker he’ll get for not having to scratch for his self. The happiest folks I ever knew were those who raised their own potatoes, corn and garden stuff the first spring out here. They’d been half starved but they found out they could get the best of their own troubles. They wouldn’t have traded that first sack of meal from their own corn for half of Kentuck. That kind made good neighbors, too, and mighty handy to have around in time of trouble. If making your young ones work off their own troubles is old-fashioned, and out of date, then the good Lord is out of date because that’s the way He lets us sink or swim with our troubles.’
And then later, in Chapter 33, “The Witness Tree,” Sayward ponders being the last of her generation alive....
“...Those wild shaggy mossy oldtime butts [trees in Ohio’s first-growth forest] would be out of place in Americus today as would the shaggy oldtime folks she had known. Yes, and she was out of place her own self, living her old life like she did in her day, taking care of herself at her age [80-something] and doing her own work, giving no thought if she lived or died. That’s one reason why her children wanted to move her. Younger folks couldn’t stand seeing her do it. It was too hard on their ‘narve strings.’
“What gave folks ‘narve strings’ today and made them soft so they couldn’t stand what folks could when she was young? Oh, she was no learned judge like Portius, just an old woodsy woman who hadn’t learned to read and write till her own young ones taught her. Her eyes were not so good any more and her mind would lately forget. But she had her own notions. It had taken a wild and rough land to raise the big butts she saw when first she came here, and she reckoned it took a rough and hard life to breed the kind of folks she knew as a young woman. If you made it easy for folks, it seemed like their hardihood had to pay for it. Didn’t she know? Which one of her young ones was it she had raised the softest, done the most for, coaxed and prayed along, saved from bad things one time after the other? Wasn’t it the same one that now could take life and his country the least and wanted to change God’s world over from top to bottom? It was the same with sick folks, Sayward noticed. Once they had been taken care of too long, they got to feeling the world ought to be changed and softened, centered towards themselves.
“But why in God’s name did soft and weak folks want to make the whole world over like they were for? In her time in the woods, everybody she knew was egged on to be his own special self. He could live and think like he wanted to and no two humans you met up with were alike. Each had his own particular beliefs and his reasons for owning to them. Folks were a joy to talk to then, for all were different. Even the simple-minded were so original in their notions they either made you laugh or gave you pause. But folks in Americus today seemed mighty tiresome and getting more so. If you saw one, you saw most. If you heard one talk, it’s likely you heard the rest. They were racked on living like everybody else, according to the fashion, and if you were so queer and outlandish as to go your own way and do what you liked, it bothered their ‘narve strings’ so they were liable to lock you up in one of their newfangled asylums or take you home where they could hold you down to their way of doing, like Libby wanted to do.
“What was the world coming to and what hearty pleasures folks today missed out of life! One bag of meal her pap said, used to make a whole family rejoice! Now folks came ungrateful from the store, grumbling they had to carry such a heavy market basket. Was that the way this great new country of hers was going to go? The easier they made life, the weaker and sicker the race had to get? Once a majority of the men got weak and soft, what weak, harmful ways would they vote the country into then? Well, her pap’s generation could get down on their knees and thank the Almighty they lived and died when they did. How would they ever have come and settled this wild country if they said to each other, ‘Ain’t you afeard?’ How would her pappy have fetched them the long way out here on foot if he’d kept asking all the time, ‘Are ye all right? How do ye feel? Do ye reckon ye kin make it?’ No, those old time folks she knew were scared of nothing, or if they were, they didn’t say so. They knew they ran bad risks moving into Indian country, but they had to die some time. They might as well live as they pleased and let others bury them when the time came. Now Libby’s generation, it seemed, lived mostly to study and fret about ailing and dying.”
nm
Friday, December 31, 2004
Book List, 2004
This is an unannotated list of books from 2004, when I was barely keeping a list of books I'd read. If you want more information about the books, please use Google or Goodreads. It's possible (but not probable) I will return to this list and post quotes, comments, and my own version of ratings
January
February
April
June
July
August
September
November
December
January
- The Silver Chair (Narnia #6), C.S. Lewis
- The Last Battle (Narnia #7), C. S. Lewis
- Emma’s Journey: Spirits of the High Country, Bill Molyneux & Sue Forrester
- Girlfriends Forever, Susan Branch
- The Maldonado Miracle, Theodore Taylor
- The Paper Bag Princess, Robert Munsch
-
Patches of Godlight, Jan Karon
February
- Every Quilt Tells a Story: A Quilter’s Stash of Wit & Wisdom, Helen Kelley
- 97 Ways to Make a Dog Smile, Jenny Langbehn
- Excellent Women, Barbara Pym
- The Enchanted April, Elizabeth von Arnim
- My Brilliant Career, Miles Franklin
- A Woman of Independent Means, Elizabeth Forsythe Hailey
- The Heavenly Village, Cynthia Rylant
April
- Quilts are Forever: A Patchwork Collection of Inspiration Stories, Kathy Lamancusa ]
- Small and Simple Things, Marjorie Pay Hinckley
June
- Les Miserables, Victor Hugo
July
- A Perfect Day, Richard Paul Evans
- Girl with a Pearl Earring, Tracy Chevalier
- The Five People You Meet in Heaven, Mitch Albom
August
- Mere Christianity, C. C. Lewis
- View from a Sketchbook: Nature Through the Eyes of Marjolein Bastin, Torah Martin
- Charms for the Easy Life, Kaye Gibbons
September
- A Country Year: Living the Questions, Sue Hubbell
- Altered Books Workshop, Bev Brazelton
November
- Fishers of Men (Kingdom & Crown, Vol. 1), Gerald Lund
December
- Come Unto Me (Kingdom & Crown, Vol. 2), Gerald Lund
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