Journey:

You will be known forever by the tracks you leave. Native American Proverb

So teach us to count our days that we may gain a wise heart. Psalm 90:12

Sunday, January 18, 2015

Daphne Du Maurier

Over the years, I have tried to read all Daphne Du Maurier has written, but I have failed  Of course, it all started with Rebecca! What a story! And you never ever know Mrs. De Winter's name. My next favorites are:  The Glass Blowers, The House on the Strand, The Scapegoat and The Birds. Also read and in my library are the following:  Rule Britannia, Jamaica Inn, Frenchman's Creek, My Cousin Rachel, Mary Anne, The King's General, I'll Never Be Young Again, Hungry Hill, The Parasites, The Flight of the Falcon, The Infernal World of Branwell Bronte,  Don't Look Now. Daphne Du Maurier's autobiography  Myself When Young  and Letters From Menabilly by Oriel Malet are interesting books on her life. Cannot forget to mention that the characters of Rebecca and/or Mrs. De Winter have been continued by other authors:  Rebecca's Tale by Sally Beauman is one I have read.


Still on my To-Read List are several:  Breaking Point, The Loving Spirit, Julius, The Doll: The Lost Short Stories, Castle Dor. Golden Lads, Winding Stair, and Mrs. De Winter by Susan Hill.

Saturday, January 17, 2015

My First Graphic Novel: The Night Bookmobile by Audrey Niffenegger

When researching for books about bookmobiles this is one of the books I found and did not notice it was a graphic novel or I probably would not have requested it from the library.  But I am very glad that I met this book. The story is haunting and the illustrations by the author in full-color pen-and-ink are wonderful. Instead of my review, here is the review that was given by Neil Gaiman on the back of the book.
The Night Bookmobile is a love letter, both elegiac and heartbreaking, to the things we have read, and to the readers that we are. It says that what we read makes us who we are. It's a graphic sort story, beautifully drawn and perfectly told, a cautionary fantasia for anyone who has ever loved books, and I hope the story of the library, of Alexandra, finds it place on the shelves of the night bookmobiles of all of us who'd care. It's a treasure.   --- Neil Gaiman

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

This is how I discovered Margaret Atwood ......  Gypsi loaned me The Handmaid's Tale to read.  I was very skeptical as the description on the book jacket didn't sound like anything I would enjoy, but by the end of the first chapter I was saying "what else has this woman written?"  I was not able to put this book down. I have that problem a lot. I start a book and it grabs me into the story and I will neglect duties in order to read.  So I have to be careful when I start a book .... is it late at night or do I have commitments for the next morning or top priorities for the next day or two. Nothing is worse as being in a story and having to stay in neutral for an extended period of time. Because my pace of reading to keep up with my desire needs to be fast, I read again many of the books that have given me much pleasure because I may miss some of the smaller but important details. I'm sure there are many readers like I am. Margaret Atwood has not disappointed me; some of her novels may not grab me as strongly as others, but I've never given up reading the book to the end. I have only read a few of her novels:  The Handmaid's Tale, Cat's Eye, Alias Grace and Oryx & Crake; there are so many more I want to read:  The Blind Assassin, The Door, Morning in the Burned House, Bluebeard's Egg.       

Friday, January 16, 2015

Books I Want to Read Again or My Recommendations

These books are ones that I want to read again and are the ones I recommend to others for reading.  They are not compiled in any special order. Keeping this list handy will help me remember the titles and where needed, to purchase a copy for my library. A lot of the novels I read are recommendations from Gypsi, who not only has an unbelievable yearly reading quota, but also does book reviews for Amazon, so I am introduced to a large range of books by her. I also love browsing in the library and on their link, searching used book stores and thrift shops, and I can spend an entire evening on the internet downloading free books to my Kindle; I should never visit a chain book store like Barnes and Noble or Books-A-Million with a credit card and plenty of time.

The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini
Baking Cakes in Kigali, Gaile Parkin
The Book Seller of Kabul, Asne Seirstd 
Reading Lolita in Tehran, Azar Nafisi
The Book Thief, Markus Zusak
Room, Emma Donoghue
5th Mountain, Paulo Coelho
Three Cups of Tea, Greg Mortison
Solitaire Mystery, Jostein Gaarder
Giver, Lois Lowry
Gathering Blue, Lois Lowry
Messenger, Lois Lowry
Education of Little Tree, Forrest Carter
From My Highest Hill, Olive Tilford Dargan
Going With the Grain, Susan Seligson
The Storied Life of AJ Fikry: A Novel, Gabrielle Zevin
I Captured the Castle, Dodie Smith
Book of Secrets, Elizabeth Joy Arnold
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, Mary Shaffer
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, Rachel Joyce
Chasing the Rose, Andrea Di Roilant
Standing Alone in Mecca, Azia Nafisi
The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman
Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
All Roads Lead to Austin, Amy Elizabeth Smith

My best enjoyment from reading comes when I'm in the genre of books about other books, or book stores and several of them are listed above. Here are a couple of links to lists:  https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/7027.Books_About_Bookstores
http://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/books-about-reading 





Friday, January 9, 2015

Coloring Books and Crayola Crayons

I always get excited when I meet another adult woman that loves coloring books and crayons. I left the coloring world behind for many years, and came back to it when Gypsi reached the age for coloring. While coloring with her, I realized how enjoyable it was and that it actually relaxed me. When I returned to the work place, I would color at breaks and/or lunch for a mindful relaxation. I discovered adult coloring books when buying coloring books that were not either movie or cartoon illustrated became impossible.  Dover Publications offers some great ones http://store.doverpublications.com/. Then I discovered the benefits of coloring when I started quilting as it helped with determining color schemes. Now the fact that it is indeed a stress-reducer is being promoted. I have a large collection of coloring books and even larger collections of Crayola crayons. Collecting Crayola crayons started with a box of special crayons that Gypsi gave me that were called Gem Tones with names such as Rose Quartz, Moonstone, Smokey Topaz, Pink Pearl. At that time, Crayola had started a big production of a variety of boxed crayons: Metallic, Pearl Brite, Retro, Glitter, State Collection. I would purchase each new one that I found and soon I needed a large box for the collection. With the internet came a Crayola web site http://www.crayola.com showing all the products you may not find or could not purchase at any local store. My favorite Crayola color is Purple Mountain Majesty which was voted #17 for the America's Favorite Top 50 Crayons and #1 was Blue. If you go to the Crayola web site be sure to check out the History link and see the colors that have been retired. 

Intimate Moments With the Savior by Ken Gire

I did experience a closeness with the Lord for reading these "first-century visits" of these seventeen intimate moments.  There were three with Peter, one with Judas, and another with the thief on the cross that spoke strongly to me; all were insightful and meaningful.  Here is the introduction:

Life is a kitchenful of preparations that has a tendency to distract the Martha in all of us. It is the purpose of this book to help bring us out of the kitchen for a few minutes to sit, with Mary, at the Savior's feet. For there the words of Jesus wait so patiently to enter our hearts. There, in his presence, we learn to listen. There we learn to look into his eyes. And there we learn to love him. Learning to love Jesus. That's what this book is all about. The best way to do that, I felt, was simple to show him to you. I have attempted to take you back in time to the intimate moments Jesus spent with individuals--to see what they saw, to hear what they heard, to feel what they felt. In those moments Jesus saw something in them that filled him with compassion. And in those moments they saw something in him that brought them to their knees. This book is not designed to be read at one sitting. It is meant to be savored over a period of time, a portion here, a portion there. After waking up in the morning. Before going to bed at night. During a break at work. Before a walk. Whenever you hunger for the Savior's presence. Each of these little portions of fellowship begins with a Bible reading. Growing out of that reading is a meditation, which gives the reader pause to reflect on that intimate moment. Out of the meditation branches a prayer. But you'll notice that the prayer doesn't end with the traditional Amen. That is because it is unfinished. You are invited to complete the prayer, bringing your own thoughts, your own feelings, your own burdens, your own petitions, your own praise. With each intimate moment you spend at the Savior's feet, may you see him a little more clearly and love him a little more deeply that you did before you sat down.   Ken Gire      

Not a Silent Night by Adam Hamilton

When the daughter passed this book onto me, I was eager to read it for two reasons. One, I've been extremely interested in Mary, Jesus' mother, for several years; two, I had just finished another book of Adam Hamilton titled Why and loved his gift of explaining difficult issues. In Not a Silent Night, Mary looks back to Bethlehem as Adam Hamilton begins the book at the end of Jesus' life with the Crucifixion and Resurrection and ends the book with the birth of the Christ Child and all is told from Mary's point of view. Although it was probably designed for reading during Advent, it is an all-season type of book.

Love and Hate in Jamestown by David A. Price

Just finished reading this book and it was another great find in the used book section at  KARM (Knoxville Area Regional Ministry). Not a very long book, around two hundred pages, but facts were compiled in such a way that the story moved the reader forward with interest. From the book jacket:
A gripping narrative of one of the great survival stories of American history: the opening of the first permanent English settlement in the New World. Drawing on period letters and chronicles, and on the papers of the Virginia Company --which financed the settlement of Jamestown --David A Price tells a tale of cowardice and courage, stupidity and brilliance, tragedy and costly triumph,.  He takes us into the day-to-day existence of the British men and women whose charge was to find gold and a route to the Orient, and who instead found hardship and wretched misery. Death, in fact, became the settlers' most faithful companion, and their infighting was ceaseless. Price offers a rare balanced view of the relationship between the settlers and the natives. He unravels the crucial role of Pocahontas, a young woman whose reality has been obscured by centuries of legend and misinformation (and more recently, animation). He paints indelible portraits of Chief Powhatan, the aged monarch who came close to ending the colony's existence, and Captain John Smith, the former mercenary and slave, who disdain for class distinctions infuriated many around him--even as his resourcefulness made him essential to the colony's success.  Love and Hate in Jamestown is a superb work of popular history, reminding us of the horrors and heroism that marked the dawning of our nation.

I remember a couple of other American history novels that I read last year and rated them very high. Devil in the White City and Isaac's Storm by Erik Larson.  



Tuesday, January 6, 2015

Classical Books & The Bookmobile

Reading and being familiar with the classics has always been the norm for me and looking back in my childhood, I found the reason, and with it a startling recognition of something that was so important to my world of reading.  The Bookmobile!

I grew up on a farm in Barnardsville, NC which was very rural in the days before roads were improved for quicker routes to Weaverville, Asheville, and Mars Hill. It was and still is a small town with a Post Office, school, churches and a few gas stores; there isn't any grocery stores or fast food chains. It is located in the north east section of Buncombe County in such a way that you would never drop by Barnardsville while going somewhere else. The closest public library was in Weaverville, which was at least thirty minutes away from my home, and with both parents working, going there was not a possibility. During the school year the school library was part of the classes, but in the summer months, when you had more reading time, there wasn't any available library for me. Fortunately, there was a bookmobile that stopped at my neighbor's house (she was a reader and loved Zane Gray) and became my connection to books. I can only guess as to the schedule of the bookmobile, but it wasn't weekly and you were limited to how many books you could check out. Not many things could be as bad as using up the limit and getting a book that wasn't a good read. So I quickly learned the symbol that indicated a classical book .... you could always depend on that symbol to be a good read! Thus began my reading relationship with the Classics. See the lists of titles by ages at this site: http://www.wannalearn.com/Classic_Literature/

I decided to check Wikipedia to see what happened to the Bookmobile: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bookmobile and I am excited to find the bookmobile is still going strong in many areas.  Kentucky leads the states in participation with ninety-eight bookmobiles in operation.  April 16th is National Bookmobile Day.     

   

Monday, January 5, 2015

Brambly Hedge Books by Jill Barklem

I discovered these books by Jill Barklem just last summer: Spring Story, Summer Story, Autumn Story and Winter Story, which illustrate the story of the lives of a community of mice. While visiting a local Goodwill Store and checking out the used book section, I saw Autumn Story and was delighted with the illustrations; they were so impressive and detailed and were an actual part of the story. Autumn Story came home with me, since it was not to be resisted at the cost of ninety-nine cents. Since the author was unknown to me, I searched the internet to find out about Jill Barklem and the Brambly Hedge books. I learned that these books have been reprinted more than twenty times, translated into thirteen languages and over a million copies have been sold since the publication in 1980, and although intended for small children, they were a success with readers of all ages. Wanting to have a copy of the other three, my husband turned to E-bay; the result was a large book with all four of the seasons of Brambly Hedge which included a section of conversations with Jill Barklem, illustrations of her early sketches and notebooks and traces the origins and development of Brambly Hedge. It is a wonderful book!  Now I need a copy of The Secret Staircase and The High Hills so I'll know what else has happened in Bramble Hedge.