August Reading, Watching and Lightning Strike

The end of August already.  As the heat was extreme, I was in quite a bit and so my reading time increased.  We did have a severe storm blow in and a lightning strike so close to the house that we had damage. 

It fried our DVD player, 5 outlets in the house and the gas water heater.  Xfinity went out for a bit but I will say I was impressed by the quick response time by a technician.  Thirty minutes after the storm a tech was outside our house hooking us up. Many people in our area were without electricty and Internet for days.  Our neighbor had to have a new air conditioner replaced- yikes!  So while I will complain about a $3,800 gas water heater, it was less expensive than a new AC unit.

Here are the books I finished this month  (Reviews are in the links)

For Nonfiction-  The Day the World Came to Town by Jim DeFede

The Atlas of Abandoned Places

📚  Three Fiction Reads 📚

Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy

Heartland by Amity Gaige

The Quiet American by Graham Greene (Classics Club)

Watching

We abandoned The Terminal List with Chris Pratt after almost finishing the first episode. He is completely unbelievable as a Navy Seal.  What we did find and like is an older show called Person of Interest   starring  Jim Caviezel. It's an interesting concept and we are up into season 2 now.  Loving the slow character reveals and development.  That said, I don't see us watching all 5 seasons.

Shrinking with Harrison Ford and Jason Segal. Love this show and the dialogue between the characters.  Just finished season 2 and I can't wait for season 3 to release! Thank you Les for recommending.  🤎 It brought a tear to my eye at the end of season 2.

Armchair Travel this month took me to Newfoundland, Maine, Australia, Vietnam and many remote places around the world with the Atlas of Abandoned Places :-)

What books and shows did you enjoy this month?  Suggestions are always very welcome.

Sharing with Deb at Readerbuzz for Sunday Salon.

Graham Greene and Charlotte McConaghy books this week

Wild Dark Shore.  I was hooked on this story after the first chapter.  A woman, close to death by drowning and hyperthermia,  washes up on the Arctic shore of a remote island.  The woman, Rowan, is dragged up to the lighthouse and cared for by Dominic Salt and his three children.  She has grave injuries requiring stitches where jagged rocks tore her body open.

 

When Rowan awakens the little boy, Orly Salt, asks her name.

"I'm Orly Salt. And you're on an island in the middle of the Southern Ocean, fifteen hundred kilometers from any other landmass.  Closest is Antarctica. So my question for you is: How did you get here Rowan?"

She is on Shearwater island, an island one hundred and twenty kilometers squared.  It's a tundra climate with many species of plants and hundreds of sea lions, seals and the last colony of royal penguins in the world.  It's also a research island where millions of seeds are stored to repopulate the earth after flooding.

All of them have secrets and as soon as you think one has sinister intentions, you get their backstory.  You've heard the saying -  don't-judge-a-book-by-it's-cover - and the reveals of all the characters took me by surprise, just when I thought I was figuring them out.

Rowan does not reveal her husband Hank is a reseacher who sent alarming emails to her while she was in their Australian home.  Dominic Salt, the father, doesn't know she is Hank's wife (at first) and there is quite a story there about Hank. Other researchers seem to have vanished, the children  (Raff, Fen and Orly) have lived on the island for the last eight years with their widowed father and I don't think any of them are thrilled to be leaving for civilization.  You are plunged into the cold, the storms and I hate to use this overused descriptor but it's atmospheric. 

I will be reading more by this Australian author.   5 stars.

The Quiet American

The setting is Vietnam in the 1950's and there is fighting between the Vietnamese and the French. France wants to hold on to the power they have, with the help from American govenment. As we all know, when France pulls out the Americans were involved in the war.  This one was on my Classics Club list I knocked out in a few days.

Aiden Pyle is the American who isn't in Vietnam to absorb the culture or as a journalist to report on the conflict.  He is an agent of the United States with the intent of bringing a better government and way of life to the Vietnamese people. That's one point of view because imposing American "values" to restructure is to ignore the the intact culture and regard as inferior. 

Thomas Fowler is the British opium addicted journalist who befriends Pyle.  Fowler was basically living with the lovely young Vietnamese woman named  Phuong.  She would prepare his opium pipe in the evenings and was quite devoted.  Then Pyle became infatuated with her and promised her marriage, Was he trying to save her from the middle-aged married Brit as well as "saving" her country?

Pyle is naive and ingenuous. Fowler has no moral compass. 

This is a classic but not one I personally found fantastic.  I am obviously in the minority.  In the past I have enjoyed some of Graham Greene's novels but this one was just meh for me. Knocking another off for my Classic Club list. 3 stars

Sharing with:

Deb at Readerbuzz for Sunday Salon

Joy for British Isles Friday

The Classics Club

If I'm stuck inside, I'll be reading...

Only a week and a half into the month and I have some books to share with you.  Some I finished in the last 4 days and the Jim DeFede book I started the end of July. Lots going on here but mostly I am inside because of extreme temperatures, so reading is my go-to for entertainment.

 The Day the World Came to Town by Jim DeFede

This nonfiction was a fast read.  I had no idea about the coordination involved getting scores of planes to land as quickly as possible, steering clear of U.S. airspace after the terrorist attacks on 9/11. After a certain point crossing the Atlantic from Europe a pilot could turn back and return to their original airport or make that decision to push on. Unbeknowst to the pilots, they would be stranded in Canada for many days, with uncertainty about moving on to the original destinations.

Imagine thousands of unscheduled flights finding an airport in Canada.   This book focused on Gander in Newfoundland, the many passengers from all over the world.  The people of Gander coming together to provide food, towels, linens and cots, opening their homes to strangers to give them a place to shower or to stay with them instead of a makeshift shelter.  The spirit of community is a credit to the people in Gander and I wish more people around this conflicted world could be as kind.

There are may reviews on this book and many quotes already but the individual stories about where some came from, friendships made and the back story on handling such as unexpected large scale event made for fascinating reading. You'll read about a few families returning to the US after many weeks traveling to Kazakhstan with their adopted child, a couple who are worried about their NYFD son who is missing while on duty at the towers, refugees,  and so many more personal stories.  5 stars.

The Atlas of Abandoned Places

Places I will never get to and some I would love to see.  What a cool book.  In addition to the locations, including latitude and longitude, there is history and many photos.  Here is an example below 👇 As you can see from the photo they estimate roughly 750,000 of these garden shed sized bunkers all over Albania.  Many are completely abandoned but some have been repurposed as museums, storage for livestock feed and more. They are from the Cold War era.

In England you can see some very interesting forts along the Kent coastal area.  Guy Maunsell designed these forts, sometimes called Maunsell Forts or His Majesty's Forts, during WW II.  They were desgined to guard Thames estuary and the coastal region

They look like they belong in a Star Wars movie.  What a fascinating sight this must be along the Kent coast in England.  

Currently finishing up the Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy. Wow, what a page turner. I need more of her books but I wonder if any of the others can top this one.

Next up I plan to read another off my Classic Club list, The Quiet American by British author Graham Greene. That's the plan anyway but you never know when a different book will lure me away.

It's still extremely hot in north Florida so Loki says

Yes, please, to a cold Pupcup.

Sharing with:

Readerbuzz for Sunday Salon

Joy for British Isles Friday

July was a busy month...books, visits and food

This past month has been a good one for me reading, armchair traveling and a few days with our Nebraska granddaughter.  

I joined in on the Paris in July at Words and Peace. Prepared many French dishes HERE and read books with the French theme  which were new to me. Much thanks to Emma at Word and Peace for hosting this event. 

✔ Read two from my Classics Club list - A Moveable Feast and Picnic at Hanging Rock.

✔ Completed another nonfiction for Shelleyrae's Nonfiction Reader Challenge -  Hidden Libraries 

🤔 Learning about streaming and Internet after living rural for 33 years.  Wow.  What a world that's been opened for us.

My granddaughter is in town visiting her mother so we've been able to get some visiting in, go for some lunches and school shopping. Fun stuff.

Armchair travel took me to France, England, Australia, Maine and all over the globe thanks to Hidden Libraries.

And now it's August...July went by so quickly.  Hope you had a good month of reading and joyful experiences.

Sharing with:

Readerbuzz for Sunday Salon