Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok

Do you have a trip you have to take and you need a good book to keep you company on the plane or in your hotel room between meetings or you just want to take a staycation on your couch with a fuzzy blanket over your legs?


Then pick this page turner up wherever you can get it. Of course you know where I got this one, right? That's correct. Goodwill.


Make sure you have food around you as well because you are not going to want to put it down to grab a bite from the fridge, or even take a bathroom break, or even answer your cell phone. Why? Because you have just entered Jean Kwok's semi-autobiography about growing up in America with English not being your first language. You will live with her and her mother as they try to navigate their new world. Understanding how others live from hand to mouth day in and day out but with an unswerving determination to succeed is inspiring.


Kudos to you, Jean.

The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins

I really don't think I need to even comment about this book as you all may have seen the movie. I did not see the movie but I read the book and don't want to muck up my own imagination by seeing the movie. Does that make any sense? I am sure that it was a fabulous rendition of the book but sense I have my own mental image of the characters, the train, the scenery, the homes, the park, etc. I just want to stay within those confines.


That said ...


this book was definitely a page turner. It's dark. But not all books can be Mary Poppins.



Tarzan the Untamed by Edgar Rice Burroughs

I remember the first time I saw a book about Tarzan written by Edgar Rice Burroughs. It was a paperback with a drawing of Tarzan, half clothed, on the cover. It was laying on my mother's night stand and I thought as a child, "My mother is reading something wild! Something about a half naked man right here in her bedroom. How can that be?"

I asked her about it and why she liked it and she told me all about it and about the author and I realized it was more then my little brain thought. Later when a movie came out about Tarzan, we saw it together and she and my twin sister had a code word we could say to one another ... "Ray-zore" or we would just put our head down and lift the other person's hand to the top of our head so that they would have to pat it and while they did we'd go "oooh oooh" imitating a quiet ape sound. If you saw "Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, 1984" you would understand.

As my mother was dying I lifted her frail hand up to the top of my head and patted it for her on my hair and did the little ape sound hoping she knew what I meant. That I loved her and I would miss her and that we were and would forever be connected.

This little book I picked up somewhere ages ago and it sat on my bookshelf for ages as well. I the embossed letters on the red cover. The "Z" especially. They don't seem to make them like this anymore. It's a work of art. Then inside the cover are beautiful drawings of Tarzan. I have another Tarzan book on my shelf waiting for me to peruse. Of course when I read them I think of my mother and how she opened my eyes to many books.

The Postmistress by Sarah Blake

 The year is 1940.

The setting is a small town on Cape Cod in Massachusetts.


War is raging in Europe.


And that's the scene set for you to enter with female characters being the main subjects. One is the postmistress of this small town called Franklin. She tries to keep everything in order and moving in proper sequence so that the mail is delivered professionally. But can she keep any back from being delivered so that others won't be hurt? It's not proper but can she do it? Is it for the best? Can she hold her little section of the world together while the rest is falling apart?


Then there's the overseas female voice that comes over the radio at night that tells of the bombings, the faces, the voices recorded, the lives lost in front of her eyes. A letter handed to her to deliver to someone if he is dead. Does she finally have to deliver it? In person? What should she do?


How are lives affected back home in Cape Cod while families wait for their loved ones to return home whole or lost forever to them.


I think you may like this read. It's not fast paced but neither is a small town.


Of course, I bought this at my wonderful Goodwill where I can find all kinds of genres.


As Martha Stewart used to say, "It's a good thing".