Divining Women by Kaye Gibbons

 

A friend gave me this book to read. I picked it up one weekend and enjoyed it. It is about a young woman who goes to her aunt's home to help her through the last stages of her pregnancy. It's back in the days when there was no air conditioning to help you struggle through the humid, hot days of summer. Then the winter arrives and one is glad for the respite if only one could get out of bed.

 

But this pregnancy is a difficult one. However the young niece not only helps her aunt physically, but emotionally and mentally as well. After all she is worth being loved even if her husband is heartless. It's time to be strong and stand up for yourself!

 

I wouldn't say that this is a happy book nor a page turner to the point where you just want to stay on the couch with a cup of tea, coffee or a cool coca-cola but it was the next book in line in my pile of three books to read. Sorry I couldn't have been more enthusiastic.

A MIDWINTER'S TALE by ANDREW M. GREELEY

 

Here we go again. Another book found at the local Goodwill when I took my Dad with me. As you know by previous blog entries, my mother loved reading this author. The allure? He writes romances and he's a priest!

 

This one starts off slow and you wonder if it will be any good but then you find yourself hooked on the characters and you want to see what happens to the main subject and his love interest. I have loaned this book to my sister so I regrettably cannot remember the character's name. Awful of me I know.

 

But he is a young Italian man growing up in N.Y. ending up being sent to war. We read about him growing up but also yearning to hear of news back home. Is that brat of a neighbor girl whom he swears he has no feelings for, but whom he rescued one night from drowning, still being good or bad? His sister can keep him updated while he falls in love with a young German girl.

 

Well you have to cut your teeth on love somehow, somewhere and with someone, right? I mean you are ten billion miles away from home and you do seem to rescue damsels in distress. It's your nature although you try to deny it. You can't just leave this starving waif of a girl stranded nor proceed not to rescue her whole family from distruction, can you?

 

So I will probably put this one on my shelf and wonder if my mother read it and if she liked it and what she would have said if we had been able to discuss it. And what a lovely cover! It makes me want to see snow.

All Things Bright and Beautiful by James Herriot

 

I have probably read this book about three times and it is always good. Just like The Andy Griffith Show or I Love Lucy. Always entertaiing. Never going sour.

 

Mr. Herriot writes down to earth yet descriptively and you find yourself reading and reading and reading. Then when you look up from the pages you wonder where the time has flown and did the sun actually set? It's no wonder since you have been transported to Darrowby helping this country vet deliver lambs, calves, stitch up dogs and wrestle ornery cats. You feel as if you have been there with James as he placates yet another old farmer who knows better than you how to castrate his bull and tells you so while he leisurely leans up against the fence and puffs on his pipe filled with aromatic tobacco.

James weaves every story with humour and each chapter is its own tale.

 

You want to breathe the air he is breathing and have a pint at the end of the day in the nearest pub. It's a sad day or evening when you read the last page and have to close the book, putting it back on the shelf to await another good read in about a year or two.

 

Thank you, James.

LAST breath by marian STEWART

 

I accidentally reread this one! Have you ever done that? You pick a book off your shelf and begin reading the first page and at the back of your mind you are having a deja vu but putting it down to your imagination. But as you keep turning the pages you say to yourself, "Yes I do believe I have read this already". But you also remember it was good, and that you don't have another book in the wings, so you continue and enjoy it all over again.

 

This one has archaeology in it (I minored in Anthropology so Archaeology is a close second) and a lost civilization (who doesn't love that) which was found in 1908 by Dr. Daria McGowen's great-grandfather. He brought the lost treasures back to his University which he founded in the states. But the guardians of Shandihar didn't take kindly to that act so for one hundred years they have been biding their time until they can get their hands on the goods again and punish those that defiled their goddess.

 

But Dr. Daria McGowen (a renowned archaeologist), who has been asked by the president of Howe University to resurrect the collection in the abandoned museum on campus in order to garner much needed money for the school, knows nothing of the tragedy that has and will continue to befall those who have acquired the treasures. It's life and death and you are not sure who will be next or who are the guardians that have made it their life's mission to avenge Shandihar and carry out the evil punishment.

 

But an FBI agent comes to the rescue. And a dog.

 

Woof!

The Final Planet by Andrew M. Greeley

Once again, a good find at Goodwill. And what a surprise it was to me to see that Andrew Greeley had written a Sci-fi! Then I read 'about the author' at the back of the book and learned he had written God Game before this one so I may have to find it and read it as well.

As you may have read previously in one of my blog entries, I bring my Dad with me sometimes to pick out books to read. He loves going to Goodwill because "some of these books are like brand new" he declares! He likes to get hard backs. I do too. Why? I guess they feel more substantial. They have beautiful jacket covers like this one. And I love a good jacket cover. I like to see if it also matches the story inside the covers. Sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn't. Then I want to design one myself or go to the Publishing House and say, "What were you thinking? That's misleading and doesn't depict the story at all, at all." (You'll get that double wordage if you read this book).

I saw this book and nearly jumped for joy. Why again? Well because my dear mother loved this author. She liked his style of writing but most of all she was intrigued that a priest was a writer and that he wrote about women. What?!!!

She always wondered if he had experiences with women before he became a priest. She was brought up Catholic, so to have a priest write about making love to a woman was compelling. He certainly writes about women in this book. He will write "She" in referring to God as well. So as I read this book I also wonder and wish my Mom was hear so we could discuss it. I kind of do it mentally with her. Sort of like a spiritual ESP. My mom would like that notion. She had a good sense of humour and we 'got' each other. Are you smiling up there in the great beyond?

At any rate I picked this book off the shelf in honor of my mother and wondered if she had read it. We would talk about the books she read and I don't have a memory of a chat about a sci-fi. But she could remember the names of the characters long after she read the book and, if I had read it even recently, I would be rummaging around in my brain for the names. She had a great mind. I loved her mind.

But back to this book ... it was published in 1985, so in its day that was pretty original in itself to be written by a priest. But in the standard of sci-fis today it is mild. Nevertheless it's really a love story between Seamus Finnbar Diarmuid Brendan Tomas O'Neill (a red bearded man of the Holy Order of St. Brigid and St. Brendan who travels on a space ship called the Iona, a pilgrim vessel). But the Iona is old and crumbling so the pilgrims on board have one final trip they can make ... to find a place to land and call home. Seamus is sent down to check it out.

Enter Seamus O'Neill's 'proper woman' who he meets on the planet Zylong and falls in love with even though she is a formidable young woman by the name of Marjetta. And she's a Lieutenant. But that doesn't stop him wooing her gently as they figure out together how to save the planet from itself.

I haven't finished it but I just wanted to write about it today on this overcast, book reading/writing morning.

It feels good to write.

Here's to you, Mom. We'll discuss the ending when I get to it.

BELLA TUSCANY: The Sweet Life in Italy by Frances Mayes

 

This book should be read in the wintertime when you want to imagine the Tuscan sun on your face. Or you can read it anytime! It's up to you.

 

I read it during the ending of winter when more snows had fallen here than usual. Towards the last pages I was able to sit in my own sun and feel its warmth as spring was emerging and the tulips my daughter gave me before Christmas began to poke their greenery out of the pots on the brick patio. By the very last page the red and yellow tulips were in full bloom, the little yellow daffodils and the light blue chionodoxa joined them and the pollen made me go inside!

 

As you all know this book is the next in line after Under The Tuscan Sun which was made into a movie. This one is also about the real life of Frances Mayes but also includes her husband, Ed. They go to Bramasole in Italy, their second home, during the summer months when they have a break from teaching. How lovely! Here they can relax and live according to the rising and setting of the sun. Here they can grow olives. They can live without the television and the hustle and bustle of San Francisco where they live for the rest of the year. But during some holidays a quick trip to breathe the Tuscan air fills them until they can get back.

 

Their  life here takes on a slower tempo.They can take daily journeys to enjoy the countryside and sample the wines whether homemade or from a winery. The pace is different. The lifestyle. The food. The people. The sun.

 

You'll want to go to Tuscany but if you can't you can at least imagine yourself there with Frances and her husband Ed. It seems their door is always open to friends but don't stay too long. They need their Tuscan space.

DINNER AT THE HOMESICK RESTAURANT by ANNE TYLER

 

This book was given to me by my sister to read after she finished it. We had gone to our fabulous Goodwill one day to stock up. Where else?!?!

 

As you can see this book has been loved. The corner is gone. The binding is soft as if many have curled the pages back on themselves in order to read it  one handed in bed. I normally do not do that to a book but in this case I did. It was already broken in.

 

The picture on the front makes this book seem like it is going to be cozy. There you are with your own cup of coffee in the morning or on a rainy afternoon, picturing yourself sitting at a white and red checked table getting ready to eat home cooked food. It will fill your stomach and radiate out to your toes making you feel loved.

 

Don't get to cozy with that thought! This book evolves and revolves around a very disfunctional family. The sensitive child grows up to own a restaurant which he renames The Homesick Restaurant for he is always and has been yearning for his family to be able to sit at the dinner table and get through a whole meal without anyone arguing and leaving. At least that's my take on it.

 

It's not exactly happy. But it's real and you want to see what happens. But don't think you'll leave this dinner table happy. But you may leave thankful that your family was not like this one.

 

I know I did!