The Mutations

 The Mutations, written by Jorge Comensal, is a funny book set in Mexico. The story is about Ramon Martinez. Ramon is 50 years old, a lawyer, an atheist, a married man and the father of two teenagers. He goes to the doctor because his tongue is painful and swollen. Eventually he finds out he has a cancerous tumor on his tongue and it has to be removed. Without his tongue he cannot speak or taste. He cannot work as a lawyer anymore. The story includes the reactions of his family, his maid, Elodia, his physician, his pathologist, and his therapist. This story sounds like it should be sad but it wasn't. Some parts were laugh out loud funny. His maid, Elodia, is very religious and she prays hard for him. To cheer him up she buys him a gift of a parrot that is missing half of it's feathers. Ramon's wife wants to get rid of the bird because of the potential for germ exposure. The parrot can talk and proceeds to utter a string of curses. Ramon thinks it is hilarious that his pious maid gave him a swearing bird and he really enjoys this gift above all others. The story of how Ramon faces his mortality is compelling and engaging.

Good Dogs Don't Make It To The South Pole

 Hans Olav-Thyvold's novel, Good Dogs Don't Make It To The South Pole was written in Norwegian. The book was translated into English last year. The story is narrated by Tassen the dog. Tassen's owner, Major Thorkildesen, dies leaving Tassen and  the Major's wife alone to grieve together. Tassen copes with his grief by eating too many treats. The Major's wife copes with her grief by drinking too much liquor. Only Tassen doesn't call it liquor, he calls it dragon water. Tassen and the Major's wife spend their time researching the Roald Amundsen expedition to the South Pole. She even takes him to a museum  where the ship used in the expedition is on display as well as a pair of taxidermied Greenland dogs who survived the trip. Since Tassen can't understand the concept of numbers, the Major's wife cuts the shape of the 100 Greenland dogs out of paper to illustrate how many dogs were eaten.  He is horrified that Amundsen used most of the other Greenland dogs as food for the men and dogs. Tassen is a wry, funny dog who tries so hard to please. I enjoyed this book very much. I liked that it was set in Norway.

Remembrance

 Rita Woods wrote Remembrance, a fictional historical novel. Abigail is one of the characters and her story starts in 1791. Margot and Winter meet Abigail in 1863. Gaelle lives in the present time working at a nursing home in Ohio where she meets Winter. I guess that makes Winter over 150 years old. One thing all the women in the story have in common besides the dark brown skin is a magic power. Winter and Gaelle can create heat and fire just by concentrating. Margo can touch a person and feel their feelings and know what medical problems they have inside them. Abigail has the best superpower (in my opinion) because she can shift space and time in the environment and create a safe space for her and other black people that white people cannot enter. The name of the safe space she creates is called Remembrance. As Abigail gets closer to the end of her life, her powers fail and she has no one who can take over her job and keep Remembrance safe from the slave traders. This is a complicated story that jumps back and forth in time. I enjoyed the story. I think I enjoyed Margot the most.

Jubilee

 Jennifer Givhan wrote this psychological drama novel, Jubilee. In the book the chapters are labelled before Jubilee and with Jubilee. The chapters before Jubilee are narrated by Bianca, a girl living in California near the Mexican border. Bianca is 15 years old at the beginning of the story and is in love with Gabe who is 17.  In the chapters with Jubilee, the story is narrated by Joshua who is in love with Bianca even though Bianca has a realistic newborn baby doll named Jubilee and Bianca believes Jubilee is a live baby. Josh is sure that his love and support and time will heal Bianca of her delusion. This author has quite an active imagination. I thought it was a good story but could have been at least 100 pages shorter.

Midnight's Children

Reading Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie took me a long, long, long time. This is a big book with many pages.  At least a half of a dozen times I contemplated quitting before I reached the end. Rushdie's style of writing is wordy, winding and exhausting to read. He used way too many words and added an enormous amount of unnecessary detail. Sometimes what he wrote was nasty and provocative. My opinion is not shared by many because this book won a lot of awards and is included in the best books of the century list. The story intertwines the life of Saleem Siani. Just as Saleem was born in 1947 his country of India became an independent country. Saleem was born just after midnight. All the children born in India during the first hour of being an independent country were given special gifts. Saleem's gift is that he can read other people's minds. Also, his huge and dripping nose has an incredibly accurate sense of smell. With his telepathic powers he gathers all the children born in that hour together to compare their talents. The book is full of Indian history and cultural changes. Rushdie is critical of Indira Gandhi's politics. I am glad I read it to the end but now it is time for some lighter reading.

 

Snow Shoes

 Last night a couple of inches of fluffy snow fell on the town so I decided it was time to put my trusty snowshoes to work. I brought along the new hiking sticks I got for Christmas. I drove to the Boulder Lake Environmental Learning Center and took to the trails for a couple of hours. My snowshoeing skills were rusty at first but gradually I gained confidence and started taking larger steps. With not a cloud in the sky the sun shone down and made the snow glitter. I wore my face mask so exhalation vapor made my eyelashes glitter too. I heard a nuthatch calling a couple times and sometimes the wind made the trees creak but the trails were very quiet for the most part. I saw a few other snowshoes and also cross country skiers. Today was a nice day to spend in the snow.

I Was Told It Would Get Easier

 Mother and daughter relationships are explored in Abbi Waxman's comedic novel I Was Told It Would Get Easier. The chapters are alternately narrated by 16 year old Emily Burnstein and 45 year old Jessica Burnstein. Mother and daughter are on a one week bus trip on the east coast exploring colleges with a tour group from Los Angeles. The relationship between Emily and Jessica is strained but loving. Jessica is a lawyer in a big law firm and she works long hours to pay for Emily's expensive private school and her future college tuition. Emily feels ignored by her mother. The week long trip might bring them closer together. The dialogue between the two of them is funny at times. The bus tour ends up in many shenanigans. The way both Emily and Jessica can read each other's moods show how close and loving they really are.

Apeirogon

An apeirogon is a mathematical term for a shape with an infinite number of sides. In writing the novel Apeirogon, Colum McCann explains the infinite number of sides taken in the Israeli Palestine conflict. The book is inspired by the real life friendship between two men, Bassan Aremin and Rami Elhanan. Both men lost a daughter. Rami's ten year old daughter was shot by a trigger happy Israeli Army guy. Bassan's thirteen year old daughter was blown up by a suicide bomber. Both men loved their daughter and are wracked with grief. Individually they join a Parent's Circle, a support group. They form a friendship and eventually travel around the world telling the truth about their lives and their daughters. This book is told in many, many chapters. I don't think I have ever read a book before with this many chapters. Some of the chapters are short consisting of only one sentence. The strange thing is that the book starts at chapter 1 and goes to chapter 501 and then starts counting backwards and ends at chapter 1 again. In total it has 1001 chapters much like the book 1001 Arabian Nights. Some of the chapters are about mathematical formulas. Some of the chapters are about migrating birds. The book is mostly about two bereaved fathers trying to replace anger with hope. I thought it was a fascinating tale.

Remembering MLK

A year ago I was traveling through Alabama. We stayed in Montgomery, Alabama for a few days because there is so much to see there. We saw the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church where Martin Luther King Junior was a pastor from 1954 to 1969, Around the corner and down a few blocks was the parsonage house where he lived with his family. This is where MLK lived as he organized the bus boycott. We also toured the Rose Parks Museum, the Legacy museum and the Legacy memorial, and the civil rights museum. Montgomery has done a fine job building museums that tell the unvarnished truth about slavery and racism. Today is a fine day for me to examine my conscious and remember Martin Luther King Junior.

One Thousand Moons

 Sebastian Barry wrote One Thousand Moons as a sequel to his other book, Days Without End. I haven't read Days Without End yet but this book can stand on it's own. The narrator in this story is Winona Cole, a Native American teenage girl adopted as a baby by two men in Wyoming. Now they live in Paris, Tennessee in the 1870's. The  Civil War is over but Tennessee is not adapting yet. Racism and white supremacy are abundant. As a Native American, Winona does not legally have any civil rights. Her two fathers are trying to raise her in a peaceful environment on a farm. They hope to send her to a University some day. This historical fiction talks about the Night Riders and rebels who harass former slaves and Native Americans. The sheriff tries to help maintain law and order but it is difficult when the Judge is a Night Rider. I thought the author did a good job getting inside the head of Winona and telling her story.

End Of The Season

 Today is the end of the shipping season in Duluth. No more coal, wheat, taconite or wind turbines parts will come in our out of town via Lake Superior until late March. I will miss hearing those boat horns sounding one long and two short signals. Next year I will make it a goal to be at canal park and watch close up and in person as a ship goes through.

First Women

 Former White House correspondent Kate Andersen Brower wrote First Women: The Grace and Power of America's Modern First Ladies. In this book she talks about Jackie Kennedy, Lady Bird Johnson, Pat Nixon, Betty Ford, Rosalyn Carter, Nancy Reagen, Barbara Bush, Hilary Clinton, Laura Bush and Michelle Obama. There is a little in there about Mamie Eisenhower too. Brower did a lot of research of records plus she interviewed family, friends, press secretaries, secret service agents, and White House staff. She not only writes about each former first lady but also of her relationship with the other first ladies that came before and after her. Only a first lady can appreciate the difficulty of being a first lady. Some of the women were helpful to others. Sounds like Lady Bird Johnson and Laura Bush were the most helpful to others. I also got the impression that all of the former first ladies with the exception of Michelle Obama enjoyed their time in the White House. The author insists that Betty Ford leaves the biggest legacy by founding the Betty Ford treatment for drug and alcohol abuse. I liked the book as a whole but found it somewhat disorganized. I was constantly jerked back in forth in time without knowing why.

The Lake Turned Upside Down

 A sibling lent me a copy of Sue Moline's book The Lake Turned Upside Down. This is an account of a tornado that blew through the town of Outing which is a two hour drive west of my house. On Aug. 6, 1969 Sue was in a cabin with 17 other people when the tornado picked up the cabin and dumped it into Roosevelt lake. In the chaos, the tornado picked up the lake before letting it fall again. Observers saw the lake bottom. Fish were found five miles from the lake. Sue survived the tornado after being tossed around in the lake like a washing machine and pieces of debris slamming into her. Eleven people near that lake died and a total of fifteen died in the tornado.  Divers were called in to search the lake for the missing. Sue decided to collect the stories and pull them together into a book. She interviewed others including hospital personnel, first responders, the Department of Natural Resources and the National Weather Service. In 2019 the town of Outing held a reunion and a 50 year memorial of the tragic tornado event. This book held quite a story. I liked the book and it made me realize just how much I prefer to read a paper book over an electronic book. I miss the library!

Happy Birthday Rodney

Forty five years ago was the year of America's Bicentennial. I was living in an apartment in Saint Cloud on Fifth Avenue. I had a five minute walk to campus and the Coborn's grocery store was at the end of our alley. Our one bedroom apartment was one of six apartments in an old house. Our place was on the first floor. The bedroom had three beds. I had the lower bunk. The bathroom had three towel racks. The refrigerator had three shelves. I had two roommates who were majoring in social work. We all got along pretty well. We had different tastes in music. One of us was into Boz Scaggs and Michael Johnson. The other was into Bonnie Raitt (who played in St. Cloud sometimes) and Manhattan Transfer. I liked lots of music but my all time favorite at the time was Rod Stewart. So that is why, today, on Rod's 76th birthday, the three of us reminisced about our music choices in that apartment and the good times we had there.

Born With Teeth

 Babies can be born with teeth but it is rare. Only 1 in 25,000 babies are born with teeth. According to Kate Mulgrew's autobiography, she was one of the rare babies who was Born With Teeth. Why she chose that as the title of her book is beyond me. Kate is an actress. She starred in the soap opera Ryan's Hope. She starred in Star Trek: Voyager as Captain Janeway. And she starred as "Red" in the Netflix series, Orange Is The New Black. She was born and raised in Dubuque, Iowa. She came from a large family. She lived her life with passion and abandon. A person who lives her life with passion and abandon can be difficult for those who live with her. In her memoir she shares some painful family secrets and I, for one, am grateful she isn't in my family sharing my secrets. I especially feel sorry for her children. She makes no apologies and thanks no one. I get the feeling she really enjoyed writing about her hero, herself.

What A Difference A Year Makes

A year ago today was my last day at work. I got up at six a.m. Breakfast was at 6:30. I left the house at 6:50. I arrived at work before 7:30.I went to meetings and cleaned out my office. I wipe all the surfaces and even vacuum the floor. Lunch was at 11:30.  I had a retirement party at 1 until 3. I cleared out all my stuff and set my email to indicate I was retiring and who to call if anyone needed anything. I was getting ready to leave at 4 p.m. when I took a few minutes to play one last prank on my successor. See that overhead bin on the left there? Do you see two pieces or ribbon stapled to the fabric to the left and right of the keyhole? I set it up so that when he opened the overhead bin and slid the cover up, nine rubber balls about an inch and a half in diameter fell out of the bin and bounced off the desk. Not the best prank, only a little harmless fun. After that I turned in my keys and headed to my car for another retirement party that lasted until 9. And then I went home exhausted.

\A year later I wake up at 6:30 on my own without an alarm clock. I fall back asleep until 7:30. I get up and make a pot of coffee. I drink coffee and read the news. Breakfast is at 8:30. I read more news and drink more coffee until 9:30. I practice music on my piano for an hour. I work on a sewing project until noon at which time I have lunch. At 1 I head out the door and go for a six mile walk. I pause to take a photo of the beautiful rime frost on some weeds. I pause again on the way home to watch a freighter ship pass through the canal. As the ship goes under the lift bridge the captain sounds the horn one long and two short blasts. The bridge responds with one long and two short blasts. I guess this ship is carrying iron ore. I keep walking and make it home by 3. I read my mail and sew until 4:30. I take a shower and have dinner. I talk on the phone for an hour with a friend who is recovering from Covid-19. A year ago I had a good day. Today I had a good day. Life is at a slower pace but I am becoming accustomed to that.

 

Vesper Flights

 Vesper Flights was written by Helen Macdonald. The book contains a series of 41 essays about nature. The author writes about birds, insects, animals, trees. foraging for mushrooms, travel, and the environment. Her enthusiasm about nature is compelling. One chapter is about common swifts. A wildlife rehabilitator specializes in common swift babies that fall out of the nest. She feeds them insects by hand and manages to save most of them because she has learned, by trial and error, what to feed them and how to care for them. When it comes time to release the swifts it has to be done slowly. Just tossing them into the sky would injure them. The trick is to place them on your palm and turn your hand so they are facing into the wind. After a few minutes the swift will begin to shiver, warming up the flight muscles, and prepare to take off. As they fall from the hand the first wing flaps are clumsy and the bird flutters just a foot above the ground. Eventually they get the hang of flying and will fly continuously, day and night, for up to ten months. Ten months! That is a long time to fly. They drink water by skimming their mouth into a lake. They sleep in flight. They mate in flight. Another chapter is about feeding birds. Much money goes into buying bird food and generally feeding birds is socially acceptable. But is it ethical? As an example, she talks about feeding pigeons. Feeding pigeons is not seen as a good thing in some places. Actually there is a house about four blocks from mine where the home owner feeds pigeons and squirrels by placing the open tray of bird food at ground level. But what about other animals. The author lives in Great Britain. Some people there feed deer and fox. Most people are against feeding fox because the fox would become dependent on human intervention. Isn't that also true for birds? This book offers hope that by observing wildlife we gain guidance and comfort.

Surprise Me

 Sophie Kinsella wrote Surprise Me, a novel set in current time in London. Sylvie and Dan have been married for 7 years when they take a day off work to have lunch and go to the doctor for annual physical exams. The doctor sees the couple in his office, compliments them on their healthy habits, and predicts they will have 68 more years of marriage. Instead of being happy about it, Sylvie and Dan worry they will get tired of each other so they make a plan to surprise each other. The first half of the book is silly and romantic. The second half gets more interesting because there are some flaws in this perfect couple. This book was a witty look into the depths of a young marriage. 

The Husband's Secret

 Liane Moriarity wrote The Husband's Secret. Yes, I read two Liane Moriarity books in a row and now I am going to wait a month before I read another one.  I think I will appreciate them more if they are spread out. The Husband's Secret is set in Sydney, Australia. The prologue talks about Pandora's box. The author states that no one told Pandora not to open the box so it isn't Pandora's fault when the box is opened. Cecelia Fitzpatrick, one of the three main characters, seems to be leading the perfect life. She has three beautiful children. She is a leader in her church and the school PTA. She is a successful businesswoman. She finds a letter written by her loving husband that says it should be opened only in the event of his death. She doesn't open it. She asks him about it. When he reacts in a way that indicates he really, really does not want her to open the letter, she opens Pandora's Box the letter. Tess comes to Sydney after her husband and her cousin tell her they are romantically interested in each other. Tess moves in with her mother and her son goes to school with Cecelia's children. Rachel is the school secretary. Older than Cecelia and Tess, she is mourning the loss of her daughter who was murdered a decade earlier. I really liked the character development in this story. This story made me think about good versus evil. Sometimes it is difficult to know the difference between good and evil.

The Bridge at San Luis Rey

 The Bridge at San Luis Rey was written by Thornton Wilder and is on  Time Magazines 100 best novels.  This book won the Pulitzer Prize for a novel in 1928. This story is set in Peru about a fictional event that happened in July of 1714. An ancient Incan rope bridge collapses and six people on the bridge plunge into the deep river below and are killed. A local missionary, a Franciscan friar by the name of Brother Juniper, witnesses the catastrophe as he was preparing to cross the bridge himself.  He sees this as a chance to prove Divine Providence. He embarks to learn all he can about the five people. For the next six years he interviews people about the victims so he can prove God had a plan for them. Most of the book are chapters describing Dona Maria, her companion Pepita (an orphan borrowed from the orphanage), Estaban, a sea captain named Captain Alvarez, Uncle Pio, and a seven year old boy named Dom Jaime. Some of the people in the book are based on real people. The rope bridge is based on another rope bridge at a different location. This novel has been made into four movies, a play and an opera. This was an interesting story partly because the setting is so foreign. The setting on 1714 is also foreign. This is a time when people hired others to write letters for them. Estaban had a job writing letters or advertisements for others for a time but he was also a fisherman, a laborer, a delivery person and a sailor. Captain Alvarez had just talked him into taking a trip to China on his boat and that is why they were on the bridge together. I liked this book because it gave me an escape to another continent and another century. Instead of worrying about Covid 19 I worried about the smallpox epidemic.

The Last Anniversary

 I enjoyed Big Little Lies and Nine Perfect Strangers, both written by Liane Moriarity so this time I chose The Last Anniversary. I enjoyed the first two books more than this one and that makes sense because The Last Anniversary was only her second book. No doubt she becomes a better writer with practice. This story is set on Squibbly Gum Island which is an island in a river near Sydney, Australia. The island is owned by the Doughty family. At the beginning of the story Rose and Connie are the teenaged daughters during the depression. Their father cannot work because of his war wounds. Their mother does work until she succumbs to pneumonia. The girls end up getting jobs to support their family. On the other side of the island is a house where their grandparents used to live. The house is rented out to Jack and Alice Monroe. Jack and Alice are expecting a baby. Connie and Rose visit the Monroe's one day only to find a marble cake cooling on the table, the tea kettle boiling, and the newborn baby girl asleep in the crib. Jack and Alice have disappeared. This mystery gets into the newspapers. Connie and Rose keep the baby girl and name her Enigma. Thanks to Connie, Squibbly Gum Island becomes a tourist attraction. Visitors visit the house of Alice and Jack Monroe while Connie and Rose explain the mystery, and sell tarts and coffee and tea. A piece of marble cake comes with the price of the tour. This story has many characters in it. Enigma grows up to have two daughters and three grandkids.  By the time the grandkids come around the Doughty family has become wealthy. Every year they have an anniversary celebration of finding baby Enigma and they make a lot of cash. Solving the mystery would be bad for business. The mystery does get solved which is why this is the last anniversary. The ending of the book has a jaw dropping "never-saw-that-coming" ending that will really surprise you.

Inspirational

 I learned today that a friend of mine passed away from a heart attack at age 75. I am shocked and sad. I worked with her. She was very sincere and professional. She didn't take short cuts at work. Even if a task was hard or nearly impossible she handled it professionally. She was very accepting of other people. Yet she could be playful too. She had Fridays off.  Every Thursday she would be sure to mention s**t (so happy it's Thursday). She loved her husband and her two children. When her husband came down with kidney failure about 15 years ago she donated one of her kidneys to him. I thought that was the most romantic thing I had ever heard of in my life. About four years ago his health was failing. He decided it was time to stop the invasive treatments to keep him alive. But he wanted to attend his own funeral. So my friend planned an early funeral for her husband at the American Legion in Anoka. They had a wonderful service. I didn't know him well but he remembered me and thanked me for coming. Her heart must have been breaking that day she attended her husband's pre-funeral but she held it together for him. He died a couple of weeks after his funeral. My friend loved to celebrate all holidays. She had clothes for every holiday. She sent Blue Mountain greetings to my email for Christmas, New Years, Valentines, Saint Patrick's Day, Memorial Day, Labor Day and Thanksgiving. She was so proud of her two children and five grandchildren. My friend also loved owls. She collected owls. She signed her name on greeting cards prefaced with "Love Owlways."  She loved to make quilts and spend time with other quilters. She also loved to travel and to spend time at her cabin fishing. I can hardly believe such a positive and generous person can leave like this. I am glad I made arrangements to meet her with another friend two years ago. The three of us had dinner together and reminisced about old times. We thanked her for her holiday greetings and told her how much they meant to us. My friend was inspirational in the way she loved and lived her life.

The Paying Guests

 The Paying Guests is a novel set in London in 1922. The author, Sarah Waters, writes about a woman named Frances (age 27) who lives with her mother now that her two brothers were killed in the first world war and her father has also died. Before the war they were a wealthy family but now they have fallen on hard times which is why they open their house to the paying guests otherwise known as renters. Len and Lilly Barber move into some rooms of the house and their presence disrupts the lives of Frances and her mother. Len is loud and clumsy and a bit cruel. Lilly is passive and flirty and seems to be in need of guidance and assistance, or is that just an act she plays? The book is full of moral quandaries and tension. I thought it was a good story but just a little dragged out.