The Dreamer Trilogy

As a huge fan of The Raven Boys series and of the author Maggie Stiefvater I was very excited to visit the world of a side series, The Dreamer Trilogy, which covers the story of Ronan Lynch and his brothers. 

Here is how the publisher described the action in Book #1, Call Down the Hawk --

The dreamers walk among us . . . and so do the dreamed. Those who dream cannot stop dreaming -- they can only try to control it. Those who are dreamed cannot have their own lives -- they will sleep forever if their dreamers die.

And then there are those who are drawn to the dreamers. To use them. To trap them. To kill them before their dreams destroy us all.

Ronan Lynch is a dreamer. He can pull both curiosities and catastrophes out of his dreams and into his compromised reality.

Jordan Hennessy is a thief. The closer she comes to the dream object she is after, the more inextricably she becomes tied to it.

Carmen Farooq-Lane is a hunter. Her brother was a dreamer . . . and a killer. She has seen what dreaming can do to a person. And she has seen the damage that dreamers can do. But that is nothing compared to the destruction that is about to be unleashed . . .

In the Raven Boys series readers learn that Ronan is a dreamer but it is not really clear what that means in terms of responsibility/irresponsibility. In Call Down the Hawk we learn there is a much, much darker side to the continuation of the Raven Boys story.

I read Call Down the Hawk in March of 2020. Hmm. Remember what our world was like in March of 2020? Is it any wonder that I never wrote a review of a book that was dealing with a very dark theme? Here is what I said on my Goodreads page about the book:

A welcome return to characters met in the Raven Boys series. Ronan's friends are away, Adam at college, Ganzy and Blue on a year-long road trip. His brothers live in DC but something is happening with Matthew, who is spacier than ever. In fact there is something happening everywhere and it is dark and foreboding. Darker than the Raven Boys and the first book in a trilogy, I worry how dark the sequel will be. Eek

I meant to read Mister Impossible as soon as it was published in May of 2021. But our personal dark-themed world was still in full force and I put off reading it until September of this year. Three years distance from the first book was too long and I could barely remember the details of the first book. I should have stopped and reread Call Down the Hawk but I didn't. I just bumbled along hoping to figure out what was happening by contextual clues. In my Goodreads review I mentioned how unique the plot was. This is how the publisher described Mister Impossible, the second book in the trilogy:

Do the dreamers need the ley lines to save the world . . . or will their actions end up dooming the world?

As Ronan, Hennessy, and Bryde try to make dreamers more powerful, the Moderators are closing in, sure that this power will bring about disaster.

Like all middle books or movies of trilogies, the action ends on a bummer note... one could even call it a catastrophic note. This time I decided to not wait another three years before reading the last book, The Greywaren (published in October 2022), and checked it out immediately from my library's on-line resource.

The Greywaren provides a lot of back story to the Lynch family:

This is the story of the Lynch family.

Niall and Mór escaped their homeland for a new start, and lost themselves in what they found.

Declan has grown up as the responsible son, the responsible brother - only to find there is no way for him to keep his family safe.

Ronan has always lived on the edge between dreams and waking ... but now that edge is gone, and he is falling.

Matthew has been the happy child, the brightest beam. But rebellion beckons, because it all feels like an illusion now.

This world was not made for such a family - a family with the power to make a world and break it. If they cannot save each other or themselves, we are all doomed.

The war between dreams and reality intensifies... with Ronan at its center.

I'm delighted to report that the end-of-the-world is averted and like all good stories, it ends with a wedding.

For fans of the Raven Boys series and of Maggie Stiefvater. I highly recommend this trilogy, but don't space out your reading like I did. Read each book one after the other, after the other. You'll want to anyway. I listened to all three books in the audio format. I love the narration done on the all the audiobooks by Will Patton. In fact, at the end of the audiobook, Maggie Stiefvater interviews Will Patton about what it was like for him to read over 60 hours of her books. If you've never heard him narrate a book, he has a very gravelly, deep voice which is perfect for the creepy, atmospheric vibe that the stories demand.

-Anne

Review: THE RADIUM GIRLS: THE DARK STORY OF AMERICA'S SHINING WOMEN

 

Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women by Kate Moore.

 Radium was the new cure-all at the beginning of the twentieth century. It was added to the American Medical Association's list of acceptable treatments for just about everything: cancer, nervous conditions, anemia, tuberculosis, toothaches, etc. It could also be added to paint which made it glow in the dark. Watch and clock-makers started using radium paint onto their dials and clock faces. Soon it became so popular to do this that radium companies had to hire hundreds of girls as dial-painters. In their orientation the girls were shown how to make a nice tip of the brush by lipping it. They would lip the brush, dip it into the radium paint, and paint over the number hundreds of times a day. "Lip-Dip-Paint" over and over. Before they started work many girls asked if the procedure was safe and they were assured it was perfectly safe, in fact they were told it would make them healthier, if anything. In addition to ingesting the tiny amounts of radium each time the girls lip the brush, no effort was made to protect the painters from airborne radium. Their skin, clothes, hair, and shoes would be covered by radium at the end of each workday and the girls actually glowed like otherworldly angels.

Not long after the girls started work at the radium company many noticed strange symptoms not common among people so young: horrible toothaches, achy joints to the point they could barely walk. The quick four block walk soon became a torturous walk for Katherine. When Hazel another dial-painter went to her dentist, Dr. Blum could believe what he was seeing: holes in the jaw bone. Several girls died. Yet when the employees went to their bosses they were assured the paint was safe and there was no connection between their mysterious illnesses and their work. What these two girls, and all the others involved, would find out is even more alarming---there is no cure for radium poisoning and no treatment for the symptoms.

The Radium Girls tells the unbelievable and true story of these women and their determination to fight back, ultimately winning in court after years and years of trying. Their win ultimately saved the lives of other people working with hazardous chemicals throughout the country. "The studies of the radium-dial workers form the basis of much of the world's present knowledge of the health risks of radioactivity. The suffering and deaths of these workers greatly increased [scientific] knowledge, ultimately saving countless lives of future generations" (341 from the YA version of the same book).

Because radium is radioactive for 1600 years, the bones of the radium girls in their graves will still set off a Geiger counter to this day. 

It has been a long time since I picked up a book that I didn't want to put down. The Radium Girls was one such book. I was mortified by the details of the medical horrors the radium girls lived through and yet I was encouraged by their resolve to do what was right not only for themselves but for others who weren't affected yet. There were hundreds and hundreds of these girls and the callousness with which the companies dealt with them was criminal. I became more and more grateful for workplace safety rules we have today because I am sure if it weren't for people like the radium girls who had to die due to negligence at work, we would be in the same boat today---the almighty dollar being more sacred than a life.

I've known a long time about the dial-painters and their radium poisoning but I had the facts all mixed up. I heard that they, out of innocence, got contaminated with radium because they painted on themselves thinking it was harmless. I supposed they thought it was fun to show up at a party and glitter and glow wearing the paint on their nails and their eyelids. I'm sure some of the girls did do that. But now I recognize I never heard the part of their story that involved ingesting radium paint through the lip-dip-paint method. I am so grateful for the impeccable research Kate Moore did to bring us the facts and then to write about them in a very readable narrative nonfiction format.

Several years ago I read the YA version of this book, The Radium Girls (Young Readers' Edition): The Scary But True Story of the Poison that Made People GLOW in the Dark. It captivated me so much when I saw the adult version was available in a book club kit from my library I thought it would be a good choice for our club to read and discuss. I was wrong. This version, which was much more detailed than the YA version, is way too long (479 pages) and too gruesome in its details. There are lots of characters/people included and it is hard to keep them all straight. Many women set the book aside before completing it. Others were so grossed out by the details of the infirmities the radium caused that is all they could focus on. My husband and I listened to the audiobook but due to time constraints we fast-forwarded through several sections, so the book didn't seem as tedious to us as to others. For this reason, I recommend you locate the YA version and read it instead of this adult version. It is essentially the same book, just shorter and bit less gruesome.

Rating: 4 stars. 

-Anne

Reviews of three very different novels/memoirs-in-verse

Reading. Blogging. Blogging. Reading. I am trying to keep up or catch up. Today I am reviewing three very different novels-in-verse/memoir-in-verse.

 The Most Dazzling Girl in Berlin by Kip Wilson

Versify, 2022

Audiobook read by Juliette Goglia

HarperCollins Audio

Target audience: YA

Set in Berlin in 1932 at the end of the Weimer Republic before Hitler comes to power. Hilde, an orphan, finds friends and a family of sorts, in a gay cabaret. There she learns to use her voice to sing for wages and finds love at the same time. However, the new world is brewing outside the doors of the Cafe Lila, one that is not friendly to gays or Jews. Of course, we all know the horrors of the Holocaust, but you may not be aware that the Nazis aimed their ire at gays, also.

This is the first novel-in-verse that I've ever listened to the audiobook version, with the print version available if needed. Poetry is meant to be read aloud so this format should have been a good medium for the book, and in some ways it was, but not so others. First, the flow of the story was choppy in the audiobook. Naturally there are fewer words, so each word carries more weight. The book, for example is almost 400 pages long, yet the audiobook is only 4 1/2 hours long. Anyone who listens to audiobooks often knows that is the length of very short books, not ones of 400 pages. I actually stopped listening 3/4 of the way through the book and returned to the print version. 

Since the book was set in Germany, it was lovely, however, to hear to German pronunciations of words. I also enjoyed hearing the narrator sing the song Hilde wrote for Rose, her love interest.

Overall I found the book to be quite satisfying. I like learning new information or information about a known topic but from a different angle. The author, Kip Wilson, likened what was happening in Berlin in 1932 to what is happening in some parts of our country today "Where certain parts of the country still impose restrictions on individuals based on gender and/or sexual orientation and where it's still dangerous to be out and free." It was a timely read.

Rating: 4 stars.

Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me 'Round: My Story of the Making of Martin Luther King Day by Kathryn Kirkwood

Versify, 2022

Target Audience: Middle grade students

 

Kathryn was seventeen and in high school in Memphis, Tennessee the year that Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot and killed in her very town. Prior to his death she had joined in the March for Freedom and Justice in support of the Sanitation Worker's strike in her town. When suddenly agitators broke up the peaceful protest and Kathryn was scared for her life. That was the beginning of her life long activism as a foot soldier for Black justice and to see to it that Martin Luther King would be honored with a National Holiday. 

This a deeply moving memoir-in-verse written by a woman who was on the front line for most of the fight to see to it that MLK received the honor he deserved for his work for voting rights and civil rights. The book is short with lots of photographs and other primary documents that related to the movement or were from Kathryn Kirkwood's private collection. Like all good nonfiction books that would be useful for class projects it has a glossary of terms, a bibliography for further reading suggestions, a diagram of how a bill becomes law, and other source notes. I recommend this book for all elementary and middle grade libraries.

Rating: 4 stars.

Golden Girl by Reem Faruqi

HarperCollins Children's Books, 2022

Target Audience: Middle grades

Aafiyah lives a very privileged life in Atlanta as Pakistani-American whose father makes plenty of money, she has every physical thing she needs, yet she can't seem to stop herself from stealing, it is almost like scratching an itch. She must do it. When her father is arrested at the airport for embezzling money, and her mother is forced to support the family and pay the legal bills, her compulsion to steal gets tangled up with wanting to do something for her family, to help out.

What I liked about the book:
The simple, short poems.
The weird facts that Aafiyah collects in her little notebook.
The way that religion, Islam, is incorporated into the family's life.
The resolution.

 

Rating: 4 stars.

-Anne

Review and quotes: STAMPED: RACISM, ANTIRACISM, AND YOU by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi

Title: STAMPED: RACISM, ANTIRACISM, AND YOU: A REMIX OF THE NATIONAL AWARD WINNING STAMPED FROM THE BEGINNING by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi

WINNER of the 2021 Cybils Award for High School Nonfiction.

Book Beginnings Quote:
"This is NOT a history book.
This is a book about the here and now.
A book to help us better understand why we are where we are.
A book about race." 

Quote from page 56:
      "In 1776 Thomas Jefferson, a thirty-three year old delegate to the Second Continental Congress, sat down to pen the Declaration of Independence. At the beginning of the declaration, he paraphrased the Virginia Constitution and wrote 'All men are equal.' 
     Bears repeating. All men are created equal.
     Say it with me. All men are created equal.
     But were slaves seen as 'men?'''
 
Summary: The history of racism., but not presented in a history book format or using a tone one expects to find there either.

"An amazingly timely and stunningly accessible manifesto for young people....At times funny, at times somber but always packed with relevant information that is at once thoughtful and spot-on, Stamped is the book I wish I had as a young person and am so grateful my own children have now." ―Jacqueline Woodson, bestselling and National Book Award-winning author of Brown Girl Dreaming

Review: I finished reading Stamped on May 30th, just days after George Floyd was murdered at the hands of a police officer. Of course my head was swirling with everything I was learning from news reports but also what I was learning and feeling by reading this book. Jason Reynolds, a respected award-winning YA author, came alongside Ibram X. Kendi to remix the 2016 National Book Award winner for nonfiction: Stamped From the Beginning. Reviewers for the Oprah Magazine say this book should be essential reading material on every high school curriculum.  It takes the academic adult version of the book, Stamped from the Beginning, and makes "it fast-paced and blisteringly honest language that will grip teens from page one." I would add that most adults will find it gripping, too. One does not need to be a teen to find this book very compelling.

Right now is prime time to pick up some books on the topic of racism and antiracism. We can do better and be better. This is a good place to start. I recommend it highly.

What I liked about the book:

• The tone makes the book and information very accessible for teen readers. The chapters are short and always end on a note which increases interest to read on.
• I learned a ton and I'm an old person who should have known most of this information by now.
• Every part of the book leads the reader to thinking about themselves and what kind of person they want to be from this time forward: a segregationist (hater), an assimilationist (a coward); or an antiracist (someone who truly loves).
• There are plenty of pages of end notes and bibliography to enhance future research projects.

What I didn't like about the book:

• The 1st edition of the book was published by Little, Brown and Company and the book is friendly with plenty of white space on the pages to invite teens to read it. Another edition of the book published by Gale is not friendly. The font is too large and the binding makes it seem very schoolish. Anyone who knows teens, knows this is a turn off.
  

Source: Print book from public library. 
-Anne

Review and quotes: PRINCESS BRIDE

Title: The Princess Bride: S. Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure (30th Anniversary edition) by William Goldman

Book Beginnings quote: 

This is my favorite book in the world, though I have never read it.

Friday56 quote: 

Clearly, something about the farm boy interested her. Facts were facts. But what? The farm boy had eyes like the sea before a storm, but who cared about eyes?

Summary: It seems that anyone who has lived in the latter half of the twentieth century or the first decades of the twenty-first century knows about 'The Princess Bride', not from the book but from the movie. It is a movie which has a cult-like following. It is probably more popular today than when it was first released in 1987. I swear that my daughters can repeat almost every line from the film along with the correct accents of the characters.

The book was written by William Goldman who inserted himself into the story, making it feel like all the bits not related to the actual Princess Bride story were nonfiction. Goldman was a screen writer who knew how to take a novel and rewrite it into a movie script. He also wrote the original screenplays for several very well-known films, such as 'Marathon Man' and 'Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid'. But none of his film scripts were as beloved as the one he wrote for his own book, The Princess Bride, which was originally published in 1973.

The book is more complicated than the movie of course. In it fictional Goldman was the child whose father read The Princess Bride to him when he was a child. He loved it so much, but never actually read it himself. Therefore it was a shock to him when he gave it to his own son and the boy thought the book was boring. Not until then did fictional Goldman know that his father had only read him the good bits of Princess Bride, authored by S. Morgenstern of Florian, skipping all the boring and tedious historical parts. At this point he decides he must edit the original, leaving only the good, adventure and love parts.

Review: The book is genius. First I kept getting confused. Was Goldman really a screen writer? Yes. Did he just edit the book which was actually written by S. Morgenstern? No. The confusion was part of the fun. I loved the whole thing. I was so familiar with the details of the movie, it was fun to learn that it was only half of the story. The Princess Bride is as much about Goldman and S. Morgenstern as it is about Westley and Buttercup. Who knew?

And then the bonus. The novel I read was the 30th anniversary edition. In it Goldman wrote a forward about the book, which was all part of the ruse. Oh, what fun (and additional confusion). But at the end of the book I got to read the first chapter of 'Buttercup's Baby', an original story written by Goldman, not Morgenstern. See? He is still having his way with us. Brilliant.

For fans of the movie, I highly recommend you take the time to read the novel now.

Book Beginnings on Friday is hosted by Rose City Reader. Share the opening quote from current book.
The Friday56 is hosted at Freda's Voice.  Find a quote from page 56 to share. 
Visit these two websites to participate. Click on links to read quotes from books other people are reading. It is a great way to make blog friends and to get suggestions for new reading material.       

Happy New Year, Y'all!

-Anne

Review and quotes: THE BOY, THE MOLE, THE FOX, AND THE HORSE

Title: The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse by Charlie Mackesy

Book Beginnings (or somewhere near the beginning) illustration:

I wish everyone's goal would be to grow up kind.

Friday56 (or some other page) illustration:

All the little conversations caused me to stop and think. I am hoping that a bunch of people can unlearn their thoughts and beliefs around politics. Sigh. It seems like unlearning is a hard thing to do.

 

Summary: The project started as random little Instagram posts by Charlie Mackesy and evolved into this book. "A former children’s book illustrator and cartoonist for the Spectator, Mackesy finds himself, by happenstance, to be a spokesman for uplift in down times."  Watch the short video to meet the author/illustrator and how his little conversations between a boy, a mole, a fox, and a horse have made such a big splash. (YouTube)

 

Review: Last year everyone was reading this little gem of a book and I was feeling left out. Apparently my library has but one copy and it was taking months for my turn to come up so I could have a turn at it too.  After reading it I immediately tried to order copies for everyone for Christmas gifts. Alas, the book was out of stock everywhere. Once again I was late to the party and would have to choose different gifts for my friends and family members I'd hoped would love this book as much as I do. 

Good plan. Sometimes we just need to focus on positive things like cake!

The whole book is full of the darling illustrations as exampled above, and had simple thoughts, usually framed as questions or small conversations. The replies often left me breathless. 

Each conversation is a springboard to others.

 

2020 has been a tough reading year for me. I found I couldn't settle into books easily which caused me to abandon many, many books only half read. If the book was too serious, too silly, too tough, or just not relevant, out it went. Then I found The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, the Horse. In it I found quiet solace and calm assurance. It is by far my favorite book of the year.

The quote is from the Jan. 15, 2020 review of the book in the Washington Post. I highly recommend you read it. (WaPo)

Book Beginnings on Friday is hosted by Rose City Reader. Share the opening quote from current book.
The Friday56 is hosted at Freda's Voice.  Find a quote from page 56 to share. 
Visit these two websites to participate. Click on links to read quotes from books other people are reading. It is a great way to make blog friends and to get suggestions for new reading material.      

-Anne

Review and quotes: THE BLIND ASSASSIN

Title: The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood

Book Beginnings quote:

Friday56 quote:

Summary:

The novel opens with these simple, resonant words: "Ten days after the war ended, my sister drove a car off the bridge." They are spoken by Iris, her sister. Just as the reader expects to settle into Laura's story, Atwood introduces a novel-within-a-novel. Entitled The Blind Assassin, it is a science fiction story told by two unnamed lovers who meet in dingy backstreet rooms. When we return to Iris, a newspaper article announces the discovery of a sailboat carrying the dead body of her husband, a distinguished industrialist.

Told in a style that magnificently captures the colloquialisms and clichés of the 1930s and 1940s, The Blind Assassin is a richly layered and uniquely rewarding experience. The novel has many threads and a series of events that follow one another at a breathtaking pace. As everything comes together, readers will discover that the story Atwood is telling is not only what it seems to be--but, in fact, much more. -The Publisher

Review: Back in 2007, or thereabouts, my book club selected The Blind Assassin as a monthly choice. I had a terrible time with the book. After reading less than 100 pages I abandoned the effort. It was so unlike me to not finish a book but I found the book-within-a-book-within-a book format terribly confusing. I went to the meeting empty handed and had to listen to the discussion without having much to offer to it. Since that time over thirteen years ago, it has bothered me that I didn't finish the book, especially since I learned about the bucket-full of awards it gleaned the year it was published, even capturing The Booker Prize in 2000.

I added The Blind Assassin back onto my TBR list a few years ago and finally got started reading it in August. Well, more accurately, I started listening to the audiobook. And do you know what? The problems I encountered in 2007 persisted. The book was still so confusing, the plot so twisted, the mix of genres so disturbing, the mystery was so ill-defined, and the romance so unromantic. I once again had a hard time with it. Because library checkouts have an expiration date, I wasn't able to finish the audiobook in the three weeks. Three months went by before I was able to get it back. Equally irritating and frustrating I only listened to about 100 pages of the book this second time, which got me to the point where I left off the first time. (Cue the eye-rolling.) But I was determined. So when the library gave me another turn on the audiobook in November I reluctantly started listening from that point forward finishing it the day the book was due. I'm done with the darn thing. Whew.

After sitting on the book for a few days trying to figure out how to review it, I opened up a few reviews written back when it was first published in 2000 and guess what? The reviewers for the New York Times and The Guardian newspapers didn't really like the book either. So how did it end up winning the Booker?

Announcing the 2000 Booker Prize winner at a ceremony at London's Guildhall, Simon Jenkins, chairman of the judges, said:

"The Blind Assassin is a complex book that works on many different levels. Far reaching, dramatic and structurally superb, it demonstrates Atwood's immense emotional range, as well as her poet's eye for both telling detail and psychological truth.

"The book demonstrates the mature pessimism of age and does so brilliantly."

So there you are. It was brilliant and pessimistic. It was written with a poet's eye to detail. Yet, it was still confusing and I only gave it three out of five stars.

What did you think of it? Let me know.

Publishing Info: McClelland and Stewart. September 5, 2000. 521 pages.

Book Beginnings on Friday is hosted by Rose City Reader. Share the opening quote from current book.
The Friday56 is hosted at Freda's Voice.  Find a quote from page 56 to share. 
Visit these two websites to participate. Click on links to read quotes from books other people are reading. It is a great way to make blog friends and to get suggestions for new reading material.     

 

-Anne

Review and quotes: HOW WE GOT TO THE MOON

Title: How We Got to the Moon: The People, Technology, and Daring Feats of Science Behind Humanity's Greatest Adventure by John Rocco

Book Beginnings page:

Friday56 page:

Summary: "To understand how we got to the Moon and why we decided to go there, we must first travel back in time. this story begins in 1957, a dozen years after the end of WWII." So begins a book about the moon landing, one of the most ambitious, thrilling, and dangerous ventures in human history. It is a meticulously researched and illustrated book which tells the stories of thousands of people---engineers, mathematicians, seamstresses, welders, and factory workers---their innovations in technology which allowed NASA to accomplish the seemingly impossible task of sending men to the Moon before the end of 1960s decade.

Review: John Rocco is an author-illustrator who wanted to create with this project a book he would have loved to read as a kid. He accomplished his goal in spades---creating a beautiful and comprehensive book which not only kids but all people should want to read and savor.

I decided to read How We Got to the Moon because of my role as a Cybils judge for nonfiction books. It had such good reviews it dawned on me that it might end up on my reading list and I wanted to get a jump start. I am so glad I did. It was the perfect book for a reviewer (me) to read during a time of huge political and cultural upheaval. It is easily digested in small chunks with each double page explains one of the issues that the Apollo program had to address on its march toward the moon. For example, the illustrated page below discusses how the engineers solved the issue of parachutes to slow the entry of the re-entry capsule so that it wouldn't burn up. Or on the Friday56 page the reader is introduced to several of the people instrumental in some aspect of the mission's success.

Though marketed to younger readers, 5th-9th grade, I highly recommend it for all readers. Rocco breaks information down into digestible and understandable pieces and his illustrations are very helpful as well. It is the best book I've read about the Apollo program by far.

Book Beginnings on Friday is hosted by Rose City Reader. Share the opening quote from current book.
The Friday56 is hosted at Freda's Voice.  Find a quote from page 56 to share. 
Visit these two websites to participate. Click on links to read quotes from books other people are reading. It is a great way to make blog friends and to get suggestions for new reading material.     

-Anne

Review and quotes: THE UNLIKELY PILGRIMAGE OF HAROLD FRY

Title: The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce

Book Beginnings quote: 

The letter that would change everything arrived on a Tuesday.

Friday56 quote: 

Harold couldn't help wondering if David knew he was walking.

Summary: Harold Fry and his wife, Maureen live in the South of England. He is recently retired and now is very aware that Maureen finds everything he does irritating, right down to way he puts jam on his toast. One Tuesday morning a letter arrives from Queenie, a woman Harold used to work with but hasn't heard from in years. Queenie tells him that she is dying from cancer and is writing to say goodbye. Harold quickly jots off a letter and heads out to post it at the nearest postbox. But instead of posting it, he starts walking. Soon Harold is on a pilgrimage of over 600 miles, certain that as long as he is walking Queenie will not die. While he walks Harold thinks about his life with Maureen and their son David, wondering how things got so wrong in their relationships. Maureen, too, finds herself missing Harold and wondering if he will even return to her after his walk. And how will that affect her relationship with David.

Review: I listened to the audiobook back in September at the recommendation of friend with whom I was recently reunited. She told me that it was one of her favorite books so I had high hopes for it. As I listened the book really started to grow on me and each new revelation that Harold confronts is revealed. The ending to so bitter sweet. I will recommend this book to friends and family members.

Book Beginnings on Friday is hosted by Rose City Reader. Share the opening quote from current book.
The Friday56 is hosted at Freda's Voice.  Find a quote from page 56 to share. 
Visit these two websites to participate. Click on links to read quotes from books other people are reading. It is a great way to make blog friends and to get suggestions for new reading material.     

 With this book I am only one review away from completing my efforts to catch up on past reviews. Check out my reviews here.

-Anne

 

Review and quotes: A VELOCITY OF BEING

I have been captivated the last week or so reading the letters from noteworthy people to readers of the future while looking at the illustrations by artists inspired by the letters. That is the Velocity of Being project. Future readers hear from all kinds of people about the importance of books and reading in their life. After reading many of the letters felt like I was being thrown a lifesaver just as I was drowning from (choose one or more): politics, state of our environment, pandemics, racism, etc. Instead of reviewing this collection, let me share with you a few snippets of several of the letters and encourage you to get this book to find treasures for yourself in it.

Note: the photo collages below show nine of the illustrations that accompanied the letters. I didn't "shop" for my favorites. I just snapped nine random photos, trying to capture a representative sample.

"Somewhere, there is a book written just for you. It will fit your mind like a glove fits your hand. And it's waiting. Go and look for it." -Neil Gaiman

"We wouldn't need need books quite so much if everyone around us understood us well. But they don't. Even those who love us get us wrong. They tell us who we are but miss things out. They claim to know what we need, but forget to ask us properly first. They can't understand what we feel--and sometimes, we're unable to tell them, because we don't really understand it ourselves. That's where books come in."-Alain de Botton

"Reading opens up worlds inside your head, worlds you can explore, play with roam around in. Worlds that are in you and become part of you. When you read, you become bigger." -Martha Nussbaum

"I wish; I wish; I wish; I wish; I wish I were in your shoes now, I wish I were standing where you are standing now...to be at the beginning as you are now, so that I could read them [my books] all again for the very first time." -David Whyte

"Books aren't just a door to another world--each book is part of a door to the whole world, a door that always has more behind it. Which is why I still can't think of anything I'd rather do more than read." -Alexander Chee

"Books saved my life...Books made me feel less ashamed. Less weird. Less different. They connected me deeply to my own humanity." -Dani Shapiro

"Reading is for the brave among us. It teaches us how to love people we don't know and will probably never meet. It teaches us that we too deserve that same sort of love. That faith is, in fact, the work of being a fully realized person." -Thomas Page McBee

"Every reader should behave like a book, pushing others toward growth, aiming to deepen the most enduring relationship: the one we have with ourselves." -Amanda Stern

The book whispers to you
From the shelf in a small voice,
Reader, into the tiniest
Shell of your innermost ear
So quiet you might mistake it
For silence.
-Matthew Burgess

"I want to tell you why books are magic and how words have power. So, there's a little girl, who lives in a house where there is a lot of anger and sadness. Maybe, she feels alone like no one understands her heart and the way its hurting. Each day she goes to school, comes back home, and does her homework.  She sits with her mami who reads her stories of a funny maid who just can't get things right but bakes delicious pies and tarts. The little girl laughs and asks her mami to read it again.There it is. Did you catch it? That moment where words and books changed her life? Where a book had the power to transport her to a place where her heart did not hurt?" -Isabel Quintero

"If you love to read, or learn to love reading, you will have an amazing life." -Anne Lamott

I could go on. There are over 100 letters and illustrations. I liked some part of each of them and could fill up a book's worth of quotes to share with you, but I will stop here. You get the point. 

Each of the quotes I did provide spoke to my heart in some way or another. Books on the shelf are calling out to me to be read or re-read. Sometimes I listen and other times I ignore their pleas. My grandson, who is three, loves to run around and is very active. Yet, if I pull out a book, he can settle right down and snuggle in, allowing him to calm down. His parents have learned to use books to help teach him concepts like 'not hitting', adjusting to a new sibling, and being kind to animals. Books themselves can have magical healing qualities. I used to tell my high school students that one of the things I like about self-help books is that the books themselves don't care if you follow their advice. This is, therefore, very freeing: take it or leave it, the book's feelings won't be hurt like a humans would be.

Reading and books have the power to change a life for the better. They can transport us to places and time periods we've never been. We can learn about cultures and people we have never encountered before. We can laugh and empathize, gain understanding and/or participate in magic. All of the letters were written by adults, several by adults at or near the end of their life, yet all of them continue to adore books and wish everyone could lead the life they lived through the magic of the written word.

-Anne

Review and quotes: BORN A CRIME

Sadie enjoying a snooze while we discussed Born a Crime. Photo used with permission.

Title: Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah

Book Beginnings quote:

Friday56 quote:

Summary: Trevor Noah, the comedian who is the host of The Daily Show on the Comedy Central channel, grew up in South Africa during the time that apartheid was becoming dismantled, though racism was alive and well. Apartheid attempted to categorize people according to their race and ethnicity to keep them separate. Noah, a mixed race child born to a black South African woman and a white Swiss man, did not fit into a category so was often on the outside in social/school settings. His birth was evidence of a crime, since it was illegal for whites and blacks to have sex and/or create children together. For this reasons his mother went to extreme measures to hide him until the tyrannical apartheid "whites rule" ended. From that point Noah and his mother, though very poor, spent a lot of time on low-cost adventures.

Born a Crime is the story of a mischievous young boy who grows into a restless young man as he struggles to find himself in a world where he was never supposed to exist. It is also the story of that young man’s relationship with his fearless, rebellious, and fervently religious mother—his teammate, a woman determined to save her son from the cycle of poverty, violence, and abuse that would ultimately threaten her own life.--The Publisher

Review: I am a big fan of Trevor Noah and the Daily Show. When everything in life seems ultra serious these days it is good to turn on Comedy Central just before bed and watch Noah talk about politics and the news of the day from a decidedly funny point of view. I've long wanted to read this memoir so I was glad when it was chosen as our book club's October reading selection. I assumed, others in my club did too, that the book would walk the readers through Noah's march from poverty in South Africa to his rise to fame as a comedian and his stint on The Daily Show. Well, we were all wrong. The book was only about his life in South Africa and only mentioned once, as an aside, that he was starting to work the clubs as a comedian. If someone wants to know how Trevor Noah got from there to here, this is not the book to read. But if someone wants to learn more about life in South Africa at the end of apartheid and about what a remarkable child Noah was and what a phenomenal mother he had, this is your book. 

I listened to the audiobook read by Trevor Noah himself. One of the things I loved most about this experience of listening to it was the way Noah used language. He learned from his mother the value of speaking to people in their own language and he knows many South African languages at least well enough to converse in them. The Friday56 quote is an example where Noah perfectly recites the Africaans quotes so the listeners could hear the language. My book club is made up of current and retired high school teachers. Three of the gals are retired world language teachers. They all spoke very passionately about how much they appreciated Noah's comments about the importance of language in building bridges with people.

The photo at the top of this page is our hostess's dog, Sadie, who joined us as we sat outside near propane heaters to discuss Born a Crime. I highly recommend this book for book clubs and for anyone who enjoys reading about other cultures or just likes Trevor Noah.

Book Beginnings on Friday is hosted by Rose City Reader. Share the opening quote from current book.
The Friday56 is hosted at Freda's Voice.  Find a quote from page 56 to share. 
Visit these two websites to participate. Click on links to read quotes from books other people are reading. It is a great way to make blog friends and to get suggestions for new reading material.     

-Anne

RHS Book Club, October 2020

 

Review and quotes: THE SIXTH EXTINCTION

Title: The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert

Book Beginnings quote: Prologue:

Beginnings, it's said, are apt to be shadowy. So it is with this story, which starts with the emergence of a new species maybe two hundred thousand years ago. The species does not have a name--nothing does--but it has the capacity to name things.

Friday56 quote:

Darwin's familiarity with human-caused extinction is clear from On the Origin of a Species. In one of the many passages where he heaped scorn on the catastrophists, he observed that animals become rare before they become extinct. 

Summary: Scientists believe there has been five mass extinctions during the history of the planet Earth. Currently the sixth extinction is under way and it will be as catastrophic the one caused by an asteroid that slammed into the planet causing the extinction of all the dinosaurs. The sixth extinction is happening faster than one can imagine and will likely be the most lasting legacy of the humans who have caused it.

Review: I've wanted to read this book since it won the Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction in 2015. When it showed up as a book club library kit for check out, I selected it for my club over a year ago. Little did I know at the time that we would be embroiled in a catastrophic pandemic when it finally came our way. Club members discussed whether or not we should read it now. Would it be too deep and depressing for us to tackle? We decided to give it a try and I think everyone was glad that we did, though only three of the nine gals actually read the whole book.

     The first five chapters or so are pretty dense, looking at evidence of extinctions going back millions of years and talking about creatures that we've never even heard of before. But as the author started talking about the evidence of this, the sixth extinction, the book became easier to read and almost un-put-downable. What is happening to amphibians, bats, rhinos, and to coral reefs is so frightening. If we don't get a handle on climate change, and fast, our ocean will become unlivable due to the acidification of it. It was a real call to action. Though very depressing at the core, it also has some points of hope, showing how many people are working on solutions to reverse the course we are on and how we can help.

     It is maybe not the book one should recommend for people to read right now in the midst of our pandemic lock-downs. Or maybe, and this is what I think, it is the perfect book to read when one has time to ponder ways they can change their own lives for the better, to help reduce their own carbon footprint. Either way, add it to your reading list. It is a must read for sometime in your life, the sooner, the better. After you read it,  watch the David Attenborough's 2020 documentary called "Life on this Planet" available right now on Netflix. It is a powerful video on the same topic by the famed naturalist who says the film is his witness statement and hope for the future.

Book Club discussion questions: (I didn't find any questions from the publisher. So I grabbed a copy of the questions assigned to tenth grade readers by their Biology teacher in some school. We all decided that questions directed at 10th graders was about the right level for us.)

The Sixth Extinction Discussion Questions 

1. The hallmark of evolutionary biology is adaptability. Is the main challenge facing our era the speed with which we are forcing things to adapt? Explain. 
2. Describe the causes and effects of ocean acidification. 
3.  Which of Kolbert's examples seems most compelling/troubling to you, and why?  
4. If humans have a place in the natural balance, should we expect the planet itself and other organisms to adapt and evolve in response to our impact? 
5. How has "the new Pangea," as Kolbert calls it, accelerated certain threats to various species' future around the globe? 
6.  "The Thing with Feathers" (chapter XIII) alludes to Emily Dickinson's poem "Hope is the thing with feathers" (Poem 314). After reading Kolbert's book, where do you see some hopeful possibilities? 
7. Has reading this book changed your views about climate change in any way? How so? 
8.  What specific steps might you take to counteract the trends that Kolbert describes in her book?

Book Beginnings on Friday is hosted by Rose City Reader. Share the opening quote from current book.
The Friday56 is hosted at Freda's Voice.  Find a quote from page 56 to share. 
Visit these two websites to participate. Click on links to read quotes from books other people are reading. It is a great way to make blog friends and to get suggestions for new reading material.     

-Anne

SOTH Book Club, October 2020