Reading and plants
June reading was quite varied in location and genres. This month I did not have a single DNF and completed five books. Yea!
ππ Books read ππ
Reading and plants
June reading was quite varied in location and genres. This month I did not have a single DNF and completed five books. Yea!
ππ Books read ππ
Loki resting with his stick. His X is quite prominent today.
Comment field update! First off, some comments you've left me have gone to Spam and so now I check spam/junk folder everytime I log on. Apologies. That's now handled . β
Also I found a way to leave comments on WP blogs, much to my delight :-) I just use my old AOL email address as it's not ever been associated with WP. Problem solved. β
Books
Manod Llan lives with her father and young sister on a remote Welsh island. She is a curious young woman and wants more than her sheltered existence provides. What she wants she does not know, she just knows there has to be more to life. The dwindling population make a living fishing, living a very simple life until a whale washes up ashore.
When English ethnographers (I had to look that up) arrive on the island to study the culture and the basic lives of the population, Manod's world is opened up and she is excited. There is much Welsh language in the narrative but the translation is there as you read. Manod is hired to make translations from Welsh to English to the reseachers.
Unfortunately the English researchers are scoundrals, in my opinion, and the book took a turn I did not expect. I suppose if you are looking for imagery the dead whale would represent the dying community on the island. This is a short book and many of the "chapters" are half a page.
Forgotten on Sunday
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What's new here is...not much. Our quest to find a good pizza to bring home for takeaway night is proving fruitless. There is one more place to try and then...guess I will make it here at home. My 68th birthday was good and uneventful - as I like it. The pizza wasn't great but the movie Chef was fabulous. Great foodie movie.
North Florida heat has me settled in most afternoons so I am getting reading done. I have read two of the books on my summer reading list. Off to a good start :-)
I loved Napolitano's book Hello Beautiful and she does not disappoint with this novel. Wonderful writing. It was hard for me to put this down and I liked how she let us get into Edward's thought process while he responded to people about how he was doing.
What a delightful book. Reading this I found Major Pettigrew to be one of my all time favorite characters and I would love to be his friend. The setting is a small English village where widower Ernest Pettigrew develops a charming friendship with Mrs. Ali, owner of the Pakistani run grocery store.
Prejudices and gossip run deep with some of the characters ( I didn't care for them as much) but the overall interactions are marvelous. There is quite a bit of humor and an edgy situation near the end which shows a clash of cultures. It has a good ending and if a sequel was written I would most certainly read it.
So that's two for two and I haven't had a DNF from my list so far. Would love to know what you are reading and any challenge plans you may have.
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Recently I was visiting Susan's blog The Cue Card and read about a book event hosted at 746 Books called The Twenty Books of Summer. Now that I have noticed this event, I am seeing it on other friends' blogs. How did I not realize this before (head in clouds) β
You can link up at 746 Books HERE. Check it out if you are interested. I don't think I can accomplish twenty books but I will give it a whirl on ten books to start.
Starting the list was fun and here are twelve titles I am considering. I added an extra two in case in have a few DNF books. Seems I have one DNF a month on average. Life is too short to plow through a book you aren't loving.
** For what it's worth, I don't use audible and read the books rather than listening. That works for some people and I have tried but...sometimes the audible reader has an inflection or emphasis on certain passages which are different than my own when reading. Does that makes sense?
Think of The Martian movie, if you've watched it. The character Mark Whatney says "Are you kidding me?" with exasperation verses "Are you kidding me?" as a point of interest.
Anyway............ my list is below π
π This cool VTOMAN Generator came in very handy when the Tallahassee area had severe storms and tornadoes two weeks ago. Much thanks to Les at Coastal Horizons for posting about these generators. We promptly bought two, a large one and small one. Hurricane season is around the corner for us so it's that time of year to prep. Little did we know we'd be using those generators within a week from purchase. We were able to have a lamp on, make coffee and charge our phones/tablets.
Reading so far this month
ππ Books read ππ
The Woman Upstairs by Claire Messud
The Rachel Incident by Caroline O'Donoghue
Twenty something Rachel Murray is finishing up college in Cork Ireland, working at a bookstore, trying to make ends meet due to the financial crisis in Ireland. She meets James Devlin working at the store and after a rocky start they become best friends and end up living together.
This story is written by Rachel in retrospect when she is married, pregnant and settled in London nearly a decade later. Her life is vastly different from 20 year old Rachel. As she looks back, you'll read the almost complicated story of how something so simple can spiral out of control.
This could be labeled as a coming-of-age story but it's more than that. No, Rachel and Devlin do not fall in love. They love each other and always have the others back, are protective, but zero love interest as Rachel is heterosexual and James is gay.
Major characters in this book are Rachel's English professor Fred Byrne and Byrne's wife Deenie, his editor. Another is one of my favorites, James Carey, who is from Derry and drives Rachel crazy. Every one of the relationships slowly coils and weaves into subplots where, quite deftly, it all comes together in the end.
The title - The Rachel Incident - isn't mentioned until the 98% mark on my Kindle. Usually a title is woven in earlier in a book. When I started this I thought it would be about college aged people drinking, getting high, nothing complicated but it develops quickly and I very much enjoyed it.
Some triggers (for some people) might be abortion issues and anti gay sentiment. I hope the author writes more.
Sharing with Joy's Book Blog for British Isles Friday
The Great Divide
This story set in 1907 explores how the Panama Canal was built. There are too many story lines, in my opinion, attempting to show how it affected a diverse group of people. An intriguing premise but not enough in depth character development for me to get invested in the individual stories.
There were the fishermen and locals, many of whom were against the Americans and big companies coming in and changing their way of life. There were two different standards for pay and work for blacks and whites; the American workers and local workers called Gold and Silver for payment and living conditions.
The most interesting story to me was about Ada, the girl who traveled from Barbados to find work. She had a sick sister who needed an operation so Ada was hellbent to send money back home. Then it would jump to another story about a doctor from Tennessee who was there for research, a bully of a foreman who took advantage of the local workers, a village of people who were about to be displaced by flooding of their homes for a dam to be built.
It was hard to empathize with any one person or situation as you couldn't get to know them well before we went off to another storyline. 3 stars.
The Woman Upstairs by Claire Messud
I have bookmarked so many passages in this book on my Kindle; where would I start to explain the raw emotions and thoughts of Nora Eldridge. She's an elementary school teacher with regrets, as all of us have I'm sure, about choices not made. The road not traveled. Dutiful daughter, dependable Nora, the quiet lady upstairs. Not the great artist with a passionate love life as she'd imagined.
Nora's mother Bella was Italian, an artist, creative and intelligent. She desperately wanted Nora to go do more, follow her dreams and not be "trapped" in a marriage and dependent on anyone.
"I always understood that the great dilemma of my mother's life had been to glimpse freedom too late, at too high a price."
In the beginning Nora is talking to us and she is angry. A barely controlled anger where she spits out her thoughts, regrets, grievances with a fuck you to the world. Not a spoiler, but this dovetails neatly into the end as we learn about her life, assumptions made by her and others and a great betrayal.
Nora falls in love with a family. Arriving late into her third grade class is Reza Shahid, an adorable little boy Nora comes to love. She is also enamoured with Reza's mother Sirena and his Lebanese father, a scholar named Skandar. She is slowly enveloped in their lives, sharing friendship and family time with them - all together and sometimes alone with only Sirena in a shared art studio or Skandar as he walks her home evenings she stays for dinner. They talk as they walk⦠well actually Skandar does most of the talking about history, philosophy and life.
Nora and Sirena talk and share their thoughts and goals for their art. Close relationships between all of the Shahid family and Nora. What could go wrong.
This is a literary fiction I enjoyed very much and will seek out more of Claire Messud's work. 5 stars.........keep me reading :-)
Note: I can not comment on WP blogs at this time. Even though I visit and try to comment, it won't work. There is a long winded reason for that and I need to wait for my old WP blog to delete. Apparently it takes a month, long story. Just a PSA here so you'll know. Sorry to Vicki, Erin, Shelleyrae π and anyone else I didn't mention with WP.
Reading, planting and eating....
Loaded the back of Rav up with Asiatic lillies, portulacas, Arizona Sun Blankets and a lone tomato plant. I am always hopeful of growing tomatoes. The deer are always hopeful I will try.
One of my go-to favorite meals is a black bean enchilada topped with loads of lettuce, tomato, sour cream and green onions. Easy vegetarian meal. Maduros were a nice side...kinda Tex-Mex-Cuban fusion :-0
April reading was quite varied in location and genres. I had a DNF with Tana French's latest book The Hunter. Surprising as I am a big fan of hers but I think it was the Dublin Murder Squad books which had me hooked. The Cal Hooper series isn't doing it for me.
Nope π
ππ Books read ππ
The Road to Dalton by Shannon Bowring
I am a Soldier, Too: The Jessica Lynch Story by Rick Bragg
The Empty House by Rosamunde Pilcher
Absolution by Alice McDermott - buddy read with JoAnn
Two books - one very good and one surprisingly bad.
The Road to Dalton
This story had me captivated by the poetic and descriptive writing. My complaint - I wanted the story to continue! The residents of Dalton Maine each have their own stories with chapters devoted to their secrets, fears and loves.
Trudy and Richard Haskell are central characters and appear in other stories as "supporting cast". Richard is the town doctor in this small town. He is good at his profession and very caring but he never wanted to be a doctor. His father was a doctor and it was expected he'd fill that void when dad retired. Richard wanted to build bridges.
His wife Trudy is the town librarian and falls in love with her best friend Bev.
Rose is a lovely young woman who is abused by Tommy, the father of her two children. She hides her bruises, makes excuses and hopes for a better life. Tommy is piece of work.
Nate and Bridget's story, well I won't give the spoilers on that but the passages about Bridget's train of thought midway through had me captivated. The writing here is so real.
There are many other characters and I very much enjoyed this slice of life in the little town of Dalton. Looking forward to more by Shannon Bowring. 5 stars.
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The Empty House
Book "travel" took me to Maine, Cornwall and Scotland this time.
Sharing with Joy's Book Blog for British Isles Friday.
Book titles mentioned within a novel: I have a couple of books which I classify as comfort reads. Despite the fact that I rarely reread book...