Oh my!!!  It's been awhile since I have posted about books I've read. I think life and forgetfulness and  the holidays of 2017 kept me busy. Plus I was getting my father's memoir self-published by moi. That was a learning curve! But I promise I have been reading and reading and reading. Here's a few of the most recent books I have read:


Tarzan the Untamed by Edgar Rice Burroughs
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
The End of Your Life Book Club by Will Schwalbe


So I'll start with Tarzan the Untamed. Who wouldn't? I found this book a long time ago in a bookstore somewhere. I like the old cover and the embossed letters. Don't you love how the 'Z' just swoops down and around and traps the Untamed? I think I may have written about this book earlier but I haven't really finished it yet because I keep picking up two more books to read also and I get caught up in those. Yada yada yada. But I have to include Tarzan here in case, again ... forgetfulness. So all you Tarzan fans go out and find a 1920 edition (like I have) and swing into the life of the ape man as he tries to save his jungle. Ahhhhh ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ahhhhhhhh. (Tarzan yell).


The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks came from my Little Library in my neighborhood. I learned a lot about how Henrietta's life impacted the world. The creating of drugs to help cure Aids, cancer, etc. Of course this was all without her consent. Back in the day doctors and scientists would take samples of your blood, cells, cancer cells, umbilical cords, take out your uterus, etc. and do any number of things with them in order to study how cells grew or reacted to other cells, chemicals, etc. Henrietta died a painful death from a cancer that spread throughout her body. Henrietta's cells were kept alive and they multiplied and multiplied and were therefore shared all over the world. They are still around today. It's amazing. So this book took years of research on the author's part and I encourage all to read this story. You'll come away with more knowledge than you may want to know. Kudos to Rebecca Skloot who was compelled to bring Henrietta's story to light.


The End of Your Life Book Club is a true account about a son helping his mother through pancreatic cancer, chemo, and reading books all along the way. I have personally known two people who had pancreatic cancer. One lasted longer than the other. Will's mother, Mary Anne Schwalbe, was a woman who didn't give up. She lived long after it was deemed possible. Reading of her courage is uplifting and you get a sense that, in life, she was always uplifting anyone who crossed her path. So I encourage you to grab a copy somewhere. I grabbed mine out of our neighborhood Little Library. To read about all what Mrs. Schwalbe accomplished in her life made me feel like asking myself, "What have you done, Nancy?" Will shares in this book all the books that he and his mother read together during her last years. Some of the books I have never heard of but one in particular made me smile because they both agreed it was one of their favorites. It made me smile because it is my mother's all time number one favorite; A Prayer for Owen Meany.


So that's all for now. And remember what my mother said ... you're never bored if you have a book to read. Or something like that. I carry a book around with me wherever I go. You never know if you'll be stopped for hours in traffic or in an emergency room with your 99 year old father.


Ta ta.

Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier

If you enjoyed reading Girl With A Pearl Earring then you will enjoy this book as well I think. Why? Because the author is one and the same.

Tracy Chevalier researches her true characters in this novel as well as the time in which it is set. You begin to see everything she sees because Tracy writes vividly of the scenery and the people.

It is specifically about two women who really existed. Two women who changed the thinking of men who thought they knew all there was to know. But who realized that these women were indeed more knowledgeable even though one came from an uneducated background.

One women older than the other. How their lives enhanced one another. How their knowledge fed each other's hunger for the remarkable creatures they found who were not of this century or era. Were these creatures really alive at one time before they became encased in the layers of earth that preserved them for all time? What catastrophe occurred which embalmed them in stone?

If you are an archaeology buff then I think you will enjoy this true to history novel as you vicariously go on the beach digs with these two women.



Still Life With Bread Crumbs by Anna Quindlen

Another Bookclub book.


First of all ... don't you like the title? I do. It makes you peaceful and a bit hungry at the same time.


I enjoyed this book choice. It's about a women who becomes defined by one painting. Is that all that she is?


Read the book to find out and make sure you don't leave any crumbs in your bed!



Munster's Case: An Inspector Van Veeteren Mystery by Hakan Nesser

As usual, I picked this one off the shelf at my Goodwill. And, as usual, it was the cover that stabbed me. (Pun intended).


I had never read a book by this author plus I was in the mood for a murder mystery. So, why not?


This was not an Agatha Christie type of story. It was dryer. But it was well written and I assure you that it wasn't the butler in the pantry with the knife. But a knife was used and it was used over and over and over. What a mess!


So "who done it"? You'll have to read it to find out. No, it wasn't that person and no, it wasn't that one either. You'll have to read it through to the end to find out.


Watch your back!



The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

Do you want to enter a world that you have never seen before? That you may think that you would never have been able to imagine on your own?


Then enter the magical and mysterious world of the Night Circus.


As you can surmise the circus is only open at night. Not only that, but it will appear and disappear when you least expect it. Out in a field beyond the town. Lit up by a central fire. Telling time by a unique clock.


The performers within the tents are not like any that you will ever see in a circus. Get your special ticket and enter into the minds of those that dreamed it into existence. It's enigmatic.


I picked this one up at my Goodwill. The cover caught my attention as well as the title. I wasn't disappointed but was confused at times. That's all I'm going to say except ...


Abracadabra!



Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

This book was a pick for my neighborhood book club. I am ashamed I had not read it before!


I could not put this story down and recently, when I was going through some of my daughter's high school notebooks, I saw that she had read this book. It was surprising to me that it was one of the books her class had read since I always thought that some of the classics that I was supposed to read were boring. Like what I call, 'The Tale of Two Boring Cities'. I also had read other classics last summer that I had not read, thinking I should, and found them to be just as boring. But I know that this book, if it had been one of the required readings while I was in high school, would have been enjoyed. But of course I was in high school during the time of the beginning of integration. Perhaps this book would not have sat well with our parents. To stir things up. We couldn't have that, right?


But when my children were in the same high school that I went to, it was different. It was filled with children from all backgrounds and nationalities. It had become a Magnet High School and populated with different cultural backgrounds. It was grand to see the friends that my daughters brought home.


So, about this book, get it. Read it. Enjoy.

The Bolter by Frances Osborne

I could not put this book down. I found it on the Goodwill shelf and the spine of the paper cover caught my attention first. It looked old and yellowed with B&W photos as well. I took it off the shelf and looked at the front cover and saw what you are seeing above. Then I really wanted to read it. I immediately took it to the check out counter and bought it for less than two dollars.

Yesterday was a cloudy day that was cool/warm enough to have the screen doors open in my sitting room. I basically decided to take a staycation and curl up on the couch and read and read and read. Finally finished the book this morning and am sorry to have to say good-bye to it.

The book was written by Frances Osborne whose great-grandmother was Idina Sackville. Idina lived her own life in her own way, being married and divorced five times! She loved Africa and ended up building her home there called Clouds. It sounds wonderful. Idina stripped away any boundaries or mores at the time and had so many sexual encounters that there aren't the pages to fill them. She married men who also, but being British nobility, if you kept it discreet, then nobody said anything.

Idina wasn't discreet.

I think you may find this true story as fascinating and as enthralling as I did. Make sure you devote a staycation to its read.