THE CITADEL by A.J.CRONIN

 

What a treat! My Dad stayed up almost all night recently finishing this book. He said he could not put it down. I told him that I'd love to read it so when I finished my recent book I let him know and he handed me this book and told me he wanted me to have it.

 

I was touched.

 

Why? Because this book belonged to my mother before she was married. It has her signature on the fly leaf in beautiful script before she grew older and lost her eyesight. Before it was my turn to read to her as she sat on the corner of the couch and listened and smiled.

 

When I opened the book and began to read it I realized that I had read it before. At some point in my life my mother had handed me this book and I imagined she must have told me that I would like it.

 

Both my mom and my dad were right. I did like it.

 

So I read it again but with a different mind frame. I read it thinking of both my mom and my dad. Of Dad sitting just weeks ago in his lounge chair with the light on over his head, reading in the wee hours of the morning, oblivious of time. Of my mother, young, before she was a Stewart, reading such a story that was published in 1938. If she read it that year then she would have been 20. She got married when she was 22, just like me.
 

I tried to imagine what she looked like with her wavy shoulder length hair and how she would have held the book in her hands absorbing each letter on the pages. She swallowed books like food for her soul.

 

I understand why my Dad liked this story because he always says that he likes to read about young people rising above their difficulties to success. Much like himself. I don't even know if you can find this one in the library or even on Amazon but I know I will treasure it and hope that my daughters will too one of these days when I may hand it over and say, "I think you'll like this book." Maybe they too will think of me as I am now sitting on the corner of my couch with the lamp on, blanket across my knees, a couple of cats asleep on my feet. Book in hand. Readers askew on my nose. I hope so.

Tears of the Giraffe by Alexander McCall Smith

OK. What can I say. Here goes.

As usual I picked this one up at Goodwill and when I approached the counter to pay for it along with two other books, the lady who rang me up predicted, "Oh, you're going to like this book."

"Really?"

"Yes. It's a T.V. series and it's really good."

"Oh? I  didn't know that."

"Yes. I have watched every episode."

"Well I look foreword to reading it then."

So I brought this lovely looking book home with the giraffe on it and read the front which said "The Miss Marple of Botswana" and thought that it was going to be as entertaining and quaint as Agatha Christie's books. But I have to say it fell short.

In fact I have put it down briefly in order to start a hopefully more interesting book that my father just gave me with the words, "I sat up all night and read this book. I couldn't believe it when I looked up at the clock and it read 5:00 a.m.!"

So I started that one last night and already I can see that it is going to be a better read. Not to discredit the 'No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency' but it reads slow and I have yet to get in touch with the characters living within the front and back page. I should catch the TV show and see if they have dressed it up a bit with humour and character development.

Plus I have yet to read about any giraffe in the book much less witnessed any tears of said giraffe.

Ta ta.



Revenge of the Middle-Aged Woman by Elizabeth Buchan

Let me say that, first of all, the title and the books cover are both misleading. (Also an editor told me that apostrophes are used too much and therefore I have left out the one that I think should be the word 'book' used previously.) At any rate I picked this book off the shelf at (where else) Goodwill. Why? Because the title cover looked like the words inside would be whimsical and flowery to go with the cover which has some beautiful, blue wisteria above two chairs at a table with a bottle of wine on top of it. It looks airy and outdoorsy and full of a promise of a middle-aged woman having her revenge. I thought, "This should be fun."

But not so, really. No.

This middle-aged woman was a doormat to other's wants and desires and she lost everything bit by bit because she had no fight or revenge in her. She just let things happen to her. She tried to be too nice under any and all circumstances which got her exactly nowhere. So the title is all wrong.

It should be something like Middle Aged-Woman Gets Nothing, Nada, Zero.

Well you will have to read it to see what she doesn't get because I don't like to give all the story away because no one would need to read the books I have read. Let's say that if you have just been ditched by your husband of many years for a younger woman then don't read this because it won't lift your spirits if you have any left. You may think that misery loves company but you should just be trying to crawl out of your own hole at this time in your life and not someone elses. Whether you dug that hole yourself or were put in it by another, think twice before you read on.

I'd say that book was not one of the ones I have read lately that grabbed me and wouldn't let me go.

In fact I have let it go which is exactly what some relationships need ... to be freed. But don't give up without a fight and some revenge in you. At least you will have a back bone!



Can't Wait to Get to Heaven by Fannie Flagg

I literally read this one straight through this past Sunday on the couch!!! That's right. I admit it. I love how Fannie Flagg writes. (You remember Fried Green Tomatoes, don't you?). At any rate, my eyes had to adjust to seeing long distance by the end of the day but it was all worth it.

Why? Because you'll get involved with the characters from the get go in this novel. You wont want to leave them even to get a cup of tea or fulfill a bathroom break. But necessities will call and your couch will stay warm for you as you dash back to continue reading about the folks who live in the small town of Elmwood Springs (meets Bedford Falls).

I won't give it all away but life in Elmwood has been touched by Mrs. Elner Shimfissle (where did Fannie get that one?) with her wisdom and kindness to all her neighbors, relatives and strangers. Did she ever meet a stranger?

What would we do without her?

That's the question.

Also the question is, "What comes first ... the chicken or the egg?"

Enjoy this heartwarming read. It would be a good one for the upcoming holidays. I found mine ... you guessed it ... at my Goodwill store.



The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

OK. Just go ahead and tell yourself that life as you know it is about to be put on hold because you will be reading this book. Don't even pick it up if you have a project due or a thesis to write. Why? Because you  may only stop to eat or sleep or stretch your legs and you also may find yourself side clicking your friends who are calling you on their Smart Phones to see if you have left the planet.

And the answer to that one is "No", but you are "Not Available At This Time", so they will just have to "leave a message and you'll get back to them" as soon as you read all 543 pages. I highly recommend the paperback because when you read it in bed you don't want it to fall and hit you on your head and give you a concussion. Then you wouldn't be able to finish this book while you were in the ER recouping or possibly in a comma.

At any rate ... this novel is good. Could you tell?

You will be transported to Africa where a missionary family goes through trials and tribulations, each one separately as individuals in their togetherness as a family in the 1960's. It's hot, buggy, rainy, dry and full of natives who do not believe in Jesus. Oh no! And here you are as a young girl, a zealous father, a suffering wife who all have to come to terms with their lives in this god forsaken plot of the planet earth or be swallowed up by the jungle. Either the natives will conform or you will, by God or by shaman.

I would have caught an alligator home a.s.a.p. if I had been put in this situation.

But since you are not really there you can be glad you don't have to sleep under a mosquito net for fear of malaria or eat bugs to stave off hunger.  You can relax and keep reading about what it would be like if you were Orleanna, Ruth May, Leah, or Adah Price. You get to be in their brains but not in the patriarch's scrambled synapses, Hallelujah and Amen.

Look there's more than one yellow brick road to get to the almighty Wizard of Oz but there's no place like home. Moral of this book?

Don't go to Africa in the 1960's unless you've brought your ruby red slippers. Don't forget to have them firmly on your feet and click them three times.



Summerland by Elin Hilderbrand

 

 

Another great summer read by Elin Hilderbrand. Thank you!

 

I picked this one up at my local Rite Aid because I saw it and that was the end of it. So saving a few bucks buying something at the Goodwill or off someone else's shelf didn't apply.

 

Note to self: If you see a Hilderbrand, grab it, and go straight home and begin reading it. Who cares if it cost $14.99 in paperback? Other things on your list to do? Really? Go hide, don't pass Go and don't collect $100. Curl up in your favorite reading spot and pretend you are without phone, TV or internet. It's just you and the paper you hold in your hands bound together to make a page turner that you get caught up in and sleep is something you can dream about.

 

OK, so you could wait and check it out at your neighborhood library but some things just can't wait. Am I right?

 

Again, Elin caught the summer fever in a small town, this time Nantucket, that gets too crowded during the summer tourist season when all the people from up North migrate south to fill up the parking spaces and the local hang outs.

 

But this summer it begins at the end of school and graduation when life begins for some and ends for others.

 

Tragedy strikes and the lives of the locals travel in different directions from what had been planned. Does it pull everyone together or pull them apart?

 

You'll have to read to find out and you won't want to put this one down.

CAUSE of DEATH by PATRICIA CORNWELL

This book was given to me by my father who got it off of his book shelf, "Here's a good one for you to read."

So I brought it home and read it. It was different. But it was good to read.

Here was a murder that kept you wondering at all the what, where, and why of events and how to connect them before the author did it for you. Dr. Kay Scarpetta is the main character. She is a medical examiner. It's cold and you can feel it seeping through her bones as she peers at ones brutally attacked and murdered below water or above ground. Are these two killings connected? If so, how? Two very different people with two very different life styles.

And she knows both of them.

What was the reason behind their deaths? Is it possible they were on the same track? Was a religious fanatical group involved? Political? Would it be the end of the world as she knew it?

Tread lightly and be careful or it'll blow up in your face, Kay.



DEADLOCKED by Charlaine Harris

You guessed it. I am a Sookie fan and proud of it.

Here's to the next in the series I have read and enjoyed. This one was handed over to me by my daughter after she read it.

I'm not telling you anything new when I say you can't put a good Sookie down, can you? You sneak a little read in with your morning coffee and then will yourself to put the book down so you can get on with your day. Once the coast is clear and you have done your 9-5 or your neverending-to-do-list-for-the-day, you grab Charlaine's words and hide if you have to under the dining room table where the family eats only during a big holiday, in order to see what's up in Bon Temps with Sookie, Eric, Bill, Sam, Pam and all the hosts of vampires, werewolves, fairies, and what-nots whose lives never get dull. That's right. But don't think you know all there is to know about these "folks" because Charlaine Harris has put a twist to all their abilities that you did not know these creatures possessed. You can't believe all you've seen in the movies or read in books up until this point. Just take Charlaine's words for it.

I encourage you to sink your teeth into the next in line series book. It will fill you up but leave you wanting more.

the beach street knitting society and yarn club by Gil McNeil

Here's a great Summer Book for you to read. It's really great. I think you will enjoy it, my blog fans!!!

If you are a knitter then it's even better for you. You'll want to own your grandmother's little "wool store in her sleepy seaside hometown". But you will find out that it's all but sleepy on the coast of England where everyone knows everyone else and they come together when there is a crisis. Whether that crisis is looking after your two rambunctious boys so you can orchestrate your new "Stitch and Bitch" gathering that takes place at night in the room above the store every week or whether it's helping you to set up your newly widowed, young life. You can count on the villagers.

Who could have predicted that you'd be moving from the noise and bustle of London to a seaside village with your two boys and all your stuff packed in a car?

But you learn that life goes on and you with it.

Pick up this book if you can find it at your local Goodwill as I did or go to the Library. You will not be disappointed.

Thanks, Gil. Can't wait to find and read the sequel, Needles and Pearls.



The Sight of The Stars by Belva Plain

Belva Plain has written many books and I picked this one up at my Goodwill (where else!) because I remembered reading her, so I was happy to find this novel in the stacks of books available.

Funny ... as I began to read and read I realized I had read this one before but could not remember the outcome. It had been awhile. This book came out in 2004. But it is a good read so I did not put it down nor hand it over to someone else to enjoy.

I thought of my father as I read this book again. He likes stories about people who come from nothing and bring themselves up in the world by their boot straps and make a success out of themselves and their families. This story fits that category.

Adam Arnring comes from a poor family and he decides to go out into the wider world and see if he can survive in it. He does so very successfully with hard work and determination and he is then able to help send money back to his father to send his younger brother to med school (which he never is able to accomplish and you will have to read on to see why), to build up the town he finds himself becoming a prominent figure in, and creates a growing family that is his heart and soul.

But he could lose it all.

Read on and see what happens to Adam. It's a good read. Will he lose it all? Is there forgiveness?



social lives by wendy walker

As you can see, the title to this entry is all in lower case to match the book's cover. I felt it was only right to do so, adding to the playing down of the significance of all the social lives within the pages of this good read.

Not that their lives are insignificant. That is not what I am saying, but rather the insignificance of all the social things they feel compelled they need to do or accomplish in order to stay in the top five. The top of the social ladder. The top five rungs. Don't look down you might fall off the ladder and then what would you do? Oh no!

If you think that all is bling and right with one's world if one possesses possessions and can throw billions around the globe then think again. If anything there may be more intrigue, more secrets under the covers and more pill popping than you can imagine. And that's just the children! The adults are more subtle at hiding their fears and their real thoughts under the makeup, inside the mansions, within their verbal barbs and aboard their private jets.

But it's more about the girls, the young women and the well heeled wives who's reputations and fortunes are at stake. What do they have to do in order to begin to be popular at a young age and what do they have to do in middle age in order to keep their status once achieved. Let the claws come out.

It's a Peyton Place waiting to happen and you want to read on and on because you get wrapped up in these four couples and their social lives.

Don't get too smug. The ending is not what you think it will be and you will go ... what?!

Good show, Wendy.

By the way ... got this one at my Goodwill.



Circle of Three by Patricia Gaffney

Another find at the Goodwill. First of all, the image on the cover could have been more defining of the story within. How about an Ark? The three persons that this book evolves around never sat at an iron table and chairs outside on a beautiful green lawn. All was not perfect. Uh uh.

Perhaps there should have been crossed swords on the front because the grandmother, daughter and granddaughter were always at odds. O.K., so there was a moment or two when they weren't butting heads ... but don't hold your breath for those scanty peaceful moments. A Circle? More like three individual straight lines that seldom intersect.

If the book revolved more around the main character (Carrie) and her High School love (Jess) finding themselves again in each other's arc (play on words here) then it could have been more full. Maybe more satisfying. But it is about forgiveness, redemption and starting anew. It is flooded (again a pun) with sorrow. Not a happy book.

I could see a book based entirely on the grandmother and her sarcastic and witty thinking, demeanor and barbs as she goes through her life at her age now, losing to younger people to be the heads of committees, being frustrated with her husband, confused by her long time friends. It could be a funny book, I think.

As it is I was depressed reading about a daughter that was so rude to her mother and so selfish. O.K., so she's 16 but not all 16 year olds are so awful. I don't think I could have put up with it and been so docile to all the stinging verbal arrows consistently pointed and directed into my heart and feelings. Ouch! Not nice. Sad. Let me say "Thank You" right now to my daughters for being who they are ... I love you!

So would I recommend this book? It's readable and you don't want to throw it down after the first page, so it will fill in the blanks from one book to another. But if you are looking for a real page turner, I wouldn't say that this one fits that category.

I apologize in advance to all those who disagree.



Voices In Summer by Rosamunde Pilcher

 

You'll never go wrong picking up a Rosamunde Pilcher book. My father's favorite author, but my mother was the one that introduced me to her. Mrs. Pilcher weaves stories about real people and they usually live in England. It's as if she gathers together characters that don't exactly know one another and puts them together in one small village or a house and they become somewhat of a family. You cannot put her books down so you might as well know that and get ready for a feast.

 

This book, Voices in Summer, is mainly about Laura. She has married a much older man who had been previously married. She feels out of sorts around the friends he and his glamorous first wife had and she would rather not be in their presence. It's awkward hearing about how Erica would do this and do that, and she was such a friend, etc. Really? She was such a friend but she left you and her husband and so forth to go to America with another man who has horses ... her real true loves?

 

But Laura also has female issues that have prevented her from giving her new husband a child. Trying to correct the problem she has an operation but must recuperate somewhere. Enter Tremenheere and the people who live in this tiny place that rejuvenates her while her husband has to go to New York on business. Tremenheere brings with it its' own intrigue of characters who seem to live free where the ocean is not far away, the warm breezes blow and the chill mornings wrap people up in their own thoughts while holding a cup of tea.

 

Make your own cup of tea or coffee and get ready to sit awhile as you get lost in the lives of others and wish you were there.

The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh

 

 

I got this one from my daughter who picked it up at an airport before a flight she took here to visit me. During her stay she finished it and left it for me to read. As I was already into a book, I put it on my bookshelf for another day. That other day was about a week ago and I wondered at the beginning if I was going to like it.

 

The subject was flowers, which I love, and how they intertwine with communication, foster care and all of the emotions wrapped up in all of those categories.

 

In the Victorian era people loved to communicate through flowers and their meanings. If a suitor sent a young lady a certain flower it may mean that he liked her. She could send a flower back that would indicate the return of the sentiment or denial of feelings.

 

In the case of Victoria, our main character in this book, she finds it hard to open up to people. Communication in any way is painful, eye contact not something she engages in. By the time she is nine years old she has been ripped from one foster care or group home to another. Mainly through her own actions out of anger.

 

But she finds, through Elizabeth who is her last hope, a way to tell people what she is feeling without actually saying the words. She learns everything about flowers and their meanings through Elizabeth. Slowly she opens up like a sunflower to the sun, only to destroy any relationship that is good because she just can't handle it. Having a truthful, love without boundaries relationship is scary.

 

Enter another person, named Grant, and I'll let you read this book in order to see how Victoria handles her own dispair, depression and fears with the help of flowers and a handful of people who let her be herself no matter what the cost to them.

 

Patience is truly a virtue.

Cane River by Lalita Tademy

 

Wow! This was the best find at my Goodwill store. Of course, I loved the cover. Old pictures on a cover always grab me. So I picked it up and read the jacket. Then I bought the book and read it.

 

If you like ancestry.com or anything genealogical, then you will enjoy this book as you follow the lives of "four astonishing women who battled vast injustices to create a legacy of hope and achievement" from 1799 to around 1936. It began in slavery,  survived the Civil War and emancipation.

 

You will get caught up in the minds, hearts and souls of these women who were young mothers, lived to be grandmothers and great grandmothers keeping their line alive through hardship and determination with a goal of making a better future for their girls to pass through as they got whiter and whiter.

 

But ... it doesn't end there.

 

So pick this novel up by Lalita Tademy who found herself "swept up in an obsessive two-year odyssey" "leaving her corporate career for the little Louisiana farming community of Cane River". Lalita found her family's roots here "on a medium-sized Creole plantation owned by a family named Derbanne".

 

This is a good one, so find it at your local library and be prepared to escape into the lines of this compelling family story. You won't be disappointed.

The Island by Elin Hilderbrand

Here's a good one to read this summer if you haven't read it already. This one I picked up from the shelf at a Rite Aid during a time when I was taking care of my father after he fell and broke a hip. You need a good book to get through that kind of trauma with a parent! Something that will get your mind off of yourself and into another world.

Enter Tuckernuck Island. It exists off the coast of Nantucket. "No phones, no television, no grocery store"... "a place without distractions". That's where this story takes place and by the time you finish reading this book you'll want to pack a light bag, but with plenty of groceries in the boot of your car, and head there yourself.

You will get caught up in the lives of a mother, a daughter, her sister and an aunt who all want to "escape their troubles". But enter some men on the scene and you know what trouble that can stir up, right? Don't worry, this is not a romance novel but a real good relationship story that brings lives and emotions together in a page turner that will get you through your own tough time or any time at all.

The Island is "the perfect getaway".

So get your fan blowing on you because it's hot on Tuckernuck Island where there's no AC but only the breeze off the ocean. Lemonade, anyone?



Tender at the Bone - Growing Up at the Table by Ruth Reichl

 

This book was a pleasure to read. If it is a rainy weekend, just forget about doing anything else and curl up on the couch with a blanket thrown over you with a delicious cup of coffee or a delicate tea with cookies.

By the way, I picked this book up at my local Goodwill. I have found that my Goodwill store has become my new place to find books to read. They are cheap and there are many different genres to choose from. Who knew?

What caught my attention first was the precious cover. Then the title. I picked it up from the pile of books on the table and turned it over to read the back of the jacket cover. It read:

At an early age, Ruth Reichl discovered that "food could be a way of making sense of the world ...".

It went on to say that is was a memoir. That was good enough for me since I just read a biography of Rock Hudson (which I checked out of my small library) and I was on a roll in that area. Also I read that Ruth "is the restaurant critic for the New York Times".

Hmmm. That statement made me want to see how her interest in food as a child propelled her into finally being a food critic as an adult. So I brought it home, opened it up and didn't want to put it down.

Included all along within the stories are delightful recipes that are part of the story being told at that time. It certainly makes you want to stop reading and make something yummy. Some of your choices would be:

Miriam Reichl's Corned Beef Ham
Aunt Birdie's Potato Salad
Alice's Apple Dumplings with Hard Sauce
The Swallow's Pork and Tomatillo Stew

And that's just to name a few. But the stories that go with the food and how Ruth came to cook them is wonderful.

Thank you to Ruth Reichl for writing a book I did not want to put down. Those are the best!