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Reading Wednesday

    Reading Wednesday

    Book Review The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles

    December 22, 2021
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    I’ve been on a roll lately with some outstanding fictional reads. And if you are in need of a last minute gift for a reader on your list – go buy this book now! Here is my book review The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles.

    Amor Towles

    I loved Amor Towles book A Gentleman In Moscow. So when I kept seeing his new novel The Lincoln Highway pop up on Oprah, The Today Show and the NY Times Bestseller list I knew I needed to read it. It’s nothing like Gentleman in Moscow as far as a storyline. But Towles ability to create the most lovable and likable characters is at its best in The Lincoln Highway.

    Not only will you love the character development, but the raucous adventure that takes place in the plot will have you unable to put the book down. You’ll be laughing and worrying, shuttering and rolling your eyes. It’s a big adventure – a mix of This Tender Land, Huckleberry Fin and Peter Pan.

    Beginning in the Middle

    The story begins in the middle. Because as we learn from precocious 8-year old Billy, all stories are best when they begin in the middle. And so we begin on the day in June 1954 when Billy’s brother Emmett is released from a juvenile detention camp.

    Emmett and Billy have lost their father to cancer, and their farm has been foreclosed. All they have is each other and Billy proposes they head west on the The Lincoln Highway in search of their mother who left them eight years before.

    But when two stowaways from the juvenile detention camp turn up in Billy and Emmett’s barn, the westward plans are put on hold as the foursome finds themselves headed to New York instead. This is the middle of the story where the real adventure begins.

    The adventures of Emmett, Billy and the stowaways Wooly and Duchess will include jumping freight trains, meeting vagrants, finding lost friends, FAO Schwartz, a “Professor”, getting beat up, a missing Studebaker, a suspicious “circus” and much more.

    Fun and Well Written

    Each chapter of this book is told from the point of view of the sensational characters and follows the misadventures through their eyes and differing perspectives.

    This is a story of belief, perseverance, luck and circumstance and starting over when you can. I hope you enjoyed my book review The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles.

    *****Five stars for The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles.

    Read last week’s review Mary Jane

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    Reading Wednesday

    Book Review Mary Jane by Jessica Anya Blau

    December 15, 2021
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    This is the feel good book of the year. I loved it and couldn’t put it down. Here is my book review Mary Jane by Jessica Anya Blau

    1970’s Baltimore and the world is changing, but fourteen year-old Mary Jane is stuck with her prim and proper parents. Mary Jane’s parents spend most of the time at “The Club”. But Mary Jane begins to see through the facade of her privileged community. Mary Jane realizes how her life, her family and her neighborhood shuts out those who are not white, rich, protestant or respectable.

    When Mary Jane takes a summer babysitting job for a local doctor’s family who have just moved into the neighborhood, she has no idea how much this job and this summer will change her life.

    Mary Jane’s mother agrees to the job because a doctor of course is respectable. But what Mary Jane learns and her mother doesn’t know is the house is one of disarray. Take out food, un-bathed little girl and messy and disorganized; Mary Jane’s eyes are open to how the other half lives. She learns the “doctor” is a psychiatrist who is spending his summer treating a drug addicted famous rock star and his even more famous movie star wife. Mary Jane will be introduced to the world of sex and drugs and rock and roll, and will come out the other side an entirely different person.

    This funny and sweet coming of age story has many raucous moments, fun and fabulously developed characters and a plot to rival Daisy Jones and the Six. Read this book. It is hilarious while being believable and perfectly depicts the era and the changing views of society at the time.

    *****Five stars for Mary Jane by Jessica Anya Blau.

    Read last week’s review Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr

    My current read The Lincoln Highway

    I hope you enjoyed my book review Mary Jane by Jessica Anya Blau. We love it when you pin and share our book reviews.

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    Reading Wednesday

    Book Review Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr

    December 8, 2021
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    Masterpiece. This is the word I keep coming back to as I try to put into words this novel. Anthony Doerr is brilliant, truly. Deserving of the Pulitzer but I suspect he won’t get it since he received the Pulitzer for his other remarkable novel All The Light We Cannot See. I have so much to say about this novel, so here is my Book Review Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr.

    Note – Cloud Cuckoo Land has a very old meaning. Read about it on Wikipedia here.

    First I implore you not to read all the reviews about this book (except this one of course!) because you will just be confused. There are both positive and negative…in fact extreme negative reviews. I’m ashamed of some of the reviewers who claim they were too confused to continue. They didn’t understand what was going on. Seriously? You must keep reading and it all comes together in one of the most beautiful stories I have ever read. Don’t give up. I will say it is the kind of book you can’t put down and come back to several weeks later. You may very well be confused if you aren’t consistent and focused. I recommend it as an Audible, the flow of it was outstanding.

    So clearly, I loved this work. I recently read one of Doerr’s early novels About Grace and I hated it. But in Cloud Cuckoo Land he shines. Doerr takes us from 15th century Constantinople to the Korean War to present day Idaho to a futuristic space ship. In all of these time periods there is a common thread…the world is in peril. The characters all are coming of age in a time where it seems the world is coming to an end. Not unlike our current state of affairs, yes?

    Following these characters in this epic story, Doerr’s imagination, ingenuity, research and writing prowess generates these deep and thoughtful characters and creates each timeline in a seemingly unrelated way. Ahhh but wait.

    We meet Anna, a 15th century 13-year old orphan with no money, no skills and no prospects in a time where women are in danger every day of their lives.

    We meet Omeir, a deformed and shunned child in the 15th century who cares deeply for animals and is just trying to survive during the time of the siege of Constantinople.

    Fast forward 500 years to Zeno who learns Greek as a prisoner of war during the Korean war, survives to return home to a quiet Idaho life, hiding his true homosexual tendencies.

    Idaho in the 1970’s we meet Seymour, a troubled and fearful child who befriends an owl as his only “trusty friend” only to be devastated when development ruins the owl habitat. Seymour cannot forgive.

    Fast forward another 500 years and we meet Konstance, a ten year old girl who has lived her entire life on an interstellar space ship, a survival technique launched when the earth was beyond repair. But a pandemic (yes seriously) will change everything.

    Doerr weaves this remarkable tale connecting these seemingly unconnected people in ways you can’t fathom. It’s a beautiful story whose soul is about how we care for each other, how we care for planet earth, and most of all how we care for the future of the human race and all the things we hold dear.

    Have faith….the world does not end. Read this book. I can’t stop thinking about it. Masterpiece is the word.

    *****Five plus stars for Cloud Cuckoo Land. I hope you enjoyed my book review Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr.

    Read last week’s review of Notorious RBG

    My current read Less by Andrew Sean Greer

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    Reading Wednesday

    Book Review Notorious RBG by Irin Carmon & Shana Knizhnik

    December 1, 2021
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    I’m a little late to the party on this book, but I have wanted to read it for a long time. This book is not long, but it is impressive in its scope. Here is my book review Notorious RBG by Irin Carmon & Shana Knizhnik.

    I thought I knew quit a lot about Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Until I read this book. Wow. I learned a great deal from this impressive research in this fairly short (240 pages) and easy to read book about an American Icon.

    Not only was RBG brilliant, hard working and steadfast, but she also was one of the most instrumental people in our country to push forward the rights that I, an American women, take for granted every single day of my life now. This is what I took away from this book, where I vastly under appreciated her quiet and determined work throughout her life for equal rights for both men and women.

    Take the time to read this book and learn more about the life of the indelible Ruth Bader Ginsburg. I hope you enjoyed by Book Review Notorious RBG by Irin Carmon and Shana Knizhnik.

    ****Four Stars for Notorious RBG

    Read last week’s review of The Sweetness of Water

    My current read Mary Jane

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    Reading Wednesday

    Book Review The Sweetness of Water by Nathan Harris

    November 24, 2021
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    As of right now, I would say this book will end up in my top five for the year. Time will tell, but it was a superbly written debut novel. Here is my book review The Sweetness of Water by Nathan Harris.

    Emancipation

    The Civil War is in its final days and the Emancipation Proclamation has freed slaves, including brothers Prentiss and Landry. But when Prentiss and Landry encounter George Walker wandering in the woods and grieving the loss of his only son in the war, everything will change.

    George’s wife Isabelle is distraught over the death of their son, and angry with her husband for it. George decides to turn his land into a peanut farm, to channel his own grief in work, and hires Prentiss and Landry to work the farm and live in the barn.

    Admonished

    Neighbors and the town’s elite are in an uproar over the Walker’s giving room and board and work to the black men and the Walker’s are chastised and admonished.

    But while this is all going on a forbidden romance bubbles between two confederate soldiers, until Landry witnesses the lovers together.

    The result will change the lives of not only the brothers, the lovers and the Walker’s, but nearly every person in the town of Old Ox.

    Beautifully Written

    The writing in this book is perfect and the story unfolds in Harris’ hands like a fine painting. I was riveted and could not put this book down. It is sweet, sad, violent, hopeful, painful and honest. A fresh new look from the viewpoint of exquisitely crafted characters, of this turning point period in our countries history.

    Go read this book. I hope you enjoyed my book review The Sweetness of Water by Nathan Harris.

    Read last week’s review Lightening Strike by William Kent Krueger.

    My current read The Promise.

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    *****Five stars for The Sweetness of Water by Nathan Harris.

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    Reading Wednesday

    Book Review Lightning Strike by William Kent Krueger

    November 17, 2021
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    One of my all-time favorite books was by William Kent Krueger This Tender Land. But I had never read any of Krueger’s Cork O’Connor series. So now I have. Here is my book review Lightning Strike by William Kent Krueger.

    Each of the books in Krueger’s Cork O’Connor series stands alone. You don’t need to worry if you haven’t read any of the many previous books. Lightning Strike is a fantastic novel all on its own.

    We are introduced to Cork as a 12-year old boy in the summer of ’63. Cork’s father Liam is the local sheriff in the small Minnesota town of Aurora on the shores of Iron Lake. Long simmering prejudice quietly eats away at this town between the Native American Ojibwa people and the rest of the population of Aurora and the surrounding region.

    When Cork stumbles upon a dead body at the sacred Native site known as Lightning Strike, Sheriff O’Connor will need to use every resource he can muster to decide if this was a suicide or a murder. Cork also sets out on his own to find answers as those living on the “rez” close ranks and those living in town point fingers, and the town’s richest man accuses everyone but himself.

    This is a wonderfully laid out crime novel with a message of truth and justice in a coming of age story. Cork and his family, and everyone in this novel must grapple with a battle between their heads and their hearts.

    I hope you enjoyed my book review Lightning Strike by William Kent Krueger

    Read last week’s review The Warmth of Other Suns

    My current read The Sweetness of Water by Nathan Harris

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    Reading Wednesday

    Book Review The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson

    Reading Wednesday

    November 10, 2021
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    Not quite a year ago on our California road trip we listened to Wilkerson’s astonishing work, Caste. It was one of my favorite reads last year. And now I’ve discovered Wilkerson’s other work (2010), a look at a remarkable time in American history that nobody really has talked about or written about. Here is my book review The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson.

    You don’t need to read Caste to understand the story being told in The Warmth of Other Suns, but I do recommend both books very highly. The remarkable years of research Wilkerson undertook for both books is staggering. But because of this attention to detail the reader is transported to another time in American history, the great migration of blacks from the south to points north and west during Jim Crowe.

    The Great Migration

    Beginning in about 1915 and continuing into the 1970’s, about six million black American’s, slave descendants, left the south in search of something safer and better. Using the routes most accessible to southern Negroes at the time, the great migration brought thousands to New York, Detroit, Chicago, Milwaukee and Los Angeles.

    Years of Research

    Wilkerson interviewed more than a 1000 people for this book and dove deep into documents and records never before used to tell this story. With her research and writing talent she brings to the reader three incredibly brave real people;

    Ida Mae Gladney a sharecropper who left Mississippi in 1937 for a better life in Chicago where she lived the rest of her years.

    Robert (Pershing) Foster who left Louisiana in 1953 despite his success as a doctor but discrimination kept him from practicing in the way he desired. Instead he traveled by car to Los Angeles where he would become wealthy and successful but always feeling inadequate.

    George Starling who left Florida in 1945 to keep from being lynched and ended up in Harlem. Brilliant Starling wanted a college degree but he would spend his life as a porter on the trains but would make peace with his choices.

    The New American History

    Following these three individuals Wilkerson finds a way for the reader to feel all the slights, sadness, danger, injustice as well as happiness in these characters, their stories and all the people who they touch.

    Read this book. Open yourself to new American history we were never taught. Wilkerson is a writer for our times.

    *****Five stars for The Warmth of Other Suns – The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration, by Isabel Wilkerson.

    Read last week’s review of The Garden of Small Beginnings

    My current read Of Women and Salt

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