How To Be A Good Creature

I listened to How To Be A Good Creature: A Memoir Of Thirteen Animals by Sy Montgomery. The author talks about some of her many pets. She is also a scientific traveler to many countries for research work. She once had a pig named Christopher Hogwood. Two teenage girls would come to her house to give her pig their own special spa treatment. The pig enjoyed the warm baths and attention. She gets quite emotional when her pets die. She even mentioned suicidal thoughts after the death of a favorite dog. The author is definitely an animal lover. 

 

 

 

 

Best To Laugh

 I saw Best To Laugh on the shelf at the library and I thought to myself, "Here is a Lorna Landvik book you haven't read yet. This book is about a girl growing up with her Grandmother in Minneapolis. Her Korean born mother died at a young age. Her father was depressed by her death and he died when she was in high school so Candy Pekkala relies on her Grandmother. As a child Candy and her Grandmother watched the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. During commercials Candy would imitate Carson and the guests to her Grandmother's delight. Candy is a little lost after finishing college. When her cousin calls and asks her to sublet her Hollywood apartment while she works as an entertainer on a cruise line Candy agrees to go. She moves into the apartment building and decides to make friends by asking to borrow a cup of sugar. Candy loves to bake and her neighbors appreciate her yellow cake with fudge frosting. She gets a job at a record production agency as a temp. Her biggest ambition in life is to do stand-up comedy. When she finally faces her fears she finds out that eventually she is quite good at it. Her special talent is handling hecklers. If she has a heckler, she is bound to do well on stage. She takes the stage name Candy Ohi (yes, like the county in western Minnesota). The book is a hoot and I did laugh at this description or Lorna's years living in Hollywood.

 

 

Sugar, Salt, Fat

I just finished reading a non-fiction book called Sugar, Salt, Fat: How The Food Giants Hooked Us. The author is Michael Moss. His book was a best seller in 2013 so it is a bit outdated but the topic is still relevant. He writes about Coke and Pepsi, Kraft, Nestle, Capri Sun, Frito-Lay, and Cargill among others. These companies had techniques to find out bliss points. They know the exact amount of sugar, salt, and fat it takes to keep you coming back for more. These processed foods lead us to be a nation beset with obesity and heart problems. As I read along I was proud of myself for never buying a Lunchable for my children. Those meals are terrible for kids. The book is long at almost 1900 pages but the last 300 pages are references. Some of the CEO's of heavily processed food or drinks feel remorse about their work and they refrain from the products they produced for their own health reasons. The book was certainly an eye opener for me.

 

 

Stuff I Saw On My Walk Today

Walking around Lake Winona today I, for the first time in my life, found some Dutchman's breeches. I have looked for these before but never found them.

I also found a leucistic robin too.

Usually when I walk around the lake I see up to a dozen turtles. Today, because the trees haven't leafed out, I saw a grand total of 87 turtles. Some were painted turtles and some were map turtles.

 

The Magician's Assistant

 I like Ann Patchett's writing so I was happy to find The Magician's Assistant available on Libby. In this story Sabine is the magician's assistant. For twenty years she helped her husband with his magic tricks. When he died she learned that he had kept a secret from her. He made vague references to his past and his childhood but they were all lies. The magician's name was Parsifal. Parsifal was gay and had a lover named Phan. The three of them lived together. Parsifal married Sabine so she would be taken care of after his death. After his death Sabine learns that Parsifal grew up in Alliance, Nebraska and has siblings and a mother. Sabine gets to know Parsifal's family and has to do much explaining regarding his choices in life. His family helps ease her grief. I could hardly put them book down because it was so intriguing. Also, it doesn't have chapters so I never knew when would be a good time to put it down.

 

 

Mudbound

Mudbound is a historical fiction story that starts in 1946 near the Mississippi delta on a small farm. Author Hillary Jordan took seven years to write this book. The farmer, Henry McAllen marries his bride in Nashville, Tennessee. He promises her a house in town but circumstances prevent that from happening. Their farm is near a river. When it rains that river rises turning the farm  into mud. She struggles to raise two daughters in a home without running water and without electricity. She also struggles to live with Henry's racist, angry father.  Henry decides to keep only the best tenant farmers. When Henry's younger brother, Jamie, returns back from fighting the Nazi's in world war two he notices his sister-in-laws distress. Jamie becomes friends with the black son of one of the tenant farmers. This guy also fought Nazi's in world war two. Their friendship sets the stage for a tragic conclusion. This book held my attention the entire time I spent reading it.

 

 

 

 

  

Stoner

Stoner was published in 1965 by the author John Williams. The story is about a boy who grew up on a farm in Missouri. His family was dirt poor and he was the only child. His parents expected that he would inherit the farm someday. He was sent to agricultural college. After his sophomore year he switched his major to literature. He didn't tell his parents because he was afraid they would be disappointed. At his graduation ceremony they were very disappointed but tried to hide it as best they could. He went on to get to get higher degrees. Eventually he got a job as a professor of literature. He meets a girl at a college event and falls in love based on her looks. They end up marrying. She turns out to be a very poor spouse. She was less than a wife and more of an enemy. All of his life he is very accepting of the bad luck that falls his way. He does get some petty revenge against a plotting coworker but other than that he leads a very sad life. The book is about a literary hero suffering through a stark life of disappointments with very few real friends.