All The Ugly And Wonderful Things

 Bryn Greenwood wrote All The Ugly and Wonderful Things. I think this is a good title because this novel has ugly and wonderful in it. The book is provocative and not for everyone. The main character is Wavy who starts off as an abandoned 8 year old girl whose aunt takes her in. Wavy doesn't talk and she doesn't eat in front of other people. She wanders away at night. Her aunt doesn't think Wavy is a good example to her two girls so Wavy goes off to live with her Grandmother. Eventually Wavy's mother comes to take her home and when she does Wavy learns she now has a baby brother. Wavy's mother is mentally ill and a drug abuser. Her father runs a meth lab. One of her father's thugs, Kellen, is 20 years old and when he meets Wavy, he sees how broken she is so he decides to help her. The story will break your heart because it is powerful and shocking, ugly and wonderful.  

Dear Edward

 Ann Napolitano wrote Dear Edward.  Twelve year old Edward is on a plane with his parents and his older brother flying to California. They are moving from New York. Suddenly the plane crashes. Edward is the only survivor. 191 people died. Edward was badly hurt in the crash. From the hospital he moves in with his aunt and uncle. After being home schooled by his parents he is now expected to go to public school. This novel was based on a true story of a young boy  who was the only survivor on a flight from South Africa to London. How Edward deals with being famous, living with his aunt and uncle, experiencing public school for the first time all while grieving the loss of his brother and parents in heart rending and sad but also hopeful. I liked Edward but I also admire his aunt and uncle who took Edward in and loved him like he was their own.

Ice

Today I was walking along the shore of Lake Superior and I kept hearing a rattling sound. I thought I was hearing the sound of a sink full of china plates ratting around in hot soapy water.as the dishwasher reached for a new plate to scrub. What I was hearing was the sound of plates of 2 inch thick ice grinding against the shore. Some plates of moving ice went below the stationary ice and some went above the ice, broke into pieces and were shoved to shore.

Sometimes a 4 foot square pane of ice got pushed upright so the incoming ice was blocked from going forward. Sometimes a group of ice panes five feet in length were moved forward toward shore. The ice kept coming and kept pushing steadily.

The movement of the ice was relaxing and mesmerizing. I wasn't the only one who stopped to watch the ice movements. Other people stood there watching the ice move fascinated by the sight and sounds.

 

The Island Of Sea Women

 Jeju is an island off the Korean peninsula much like Sicily is an island off the Italian peninsula. Jeju is part of South Korea but also separate. Jeju is the setting for The Island of Sea Women written by Lisa See. She also wrote Shanghai Girls and I enjoyed that story. In this book the sea women are called haenyeo because they dive underwater to forage for good. Without wet suits or scuba gear, the women dive deep for abalone, octopus, sea cucumbers, anemone, and mussels. This is dangerous work because abalone will grip the rock tightly when threatened which traps the divers whose knife is attached to their wrist. When the book begins the island is run by the Japanese. Young-sook and Mi-ja are 12 year old friends who are just learning the trade. Mi-ja's reputation is tarnished because her father was a collaborator with the Japanese. The two young women remain friends through world war two, the Korean war and the American presence in Korea. The story was interesting because the society on Jeju is matriarchal. The women provide the income while the men stay home and watch the young children. I always think a good book will take me away from my present circumstances and this book definitely took me far away.

Bog Drive

Today the weather warmed up to a balmy 15 degrees so I drove out to the Sam Zim bog to see what I could see. I stopped at a board walk and found a flock of red polls at a feeder. As I went along the boardwalk I came to a young couple sitting on the boardwalk with giant camera lenses pointed into the brush. They motioned me to be quiet. They saw a bobcat walking through the brush and were hoping to catch another glimpse of it. I stayed quiet. I waited for 5 minutes. A black billed magpie flew above us. When I got cold enough I retreated back to my car hoping I didn't scare the bobcat away.

At the welcome center I saw some gray jays feeding.

Pine grossbeaks were feeding too. Later I saw a group of 9 ravens feeding on a deer carcass lying in the ditch. The ravens were camera shy. I had a nice drive through the bog. I kept my eye out for wolf tracks but had no luck.

 

So Far So Good

 When I picked this book to read I didn't know it was the eighth in a series of books about a private investigator named Cecil Younger. So Far So Good by John Straley is set in Alaska. Cecil is in prison and worried about his daughter Blossom. Blossom is 16 and she wants to be a private investigator like her father. I enjoyed reading about Blossom and her school chums and her relationship with her father. What I didn't like was reading the trash talk that goes on in prison. I didn't enjoy reading about the violence in prison. I didn't enjoy reading about Blossom becoming a victim in a violent crime. Note to self - stay away from crime stories.

Fuzz

 Years ago I started reading Mary Roach books on the advice of a friend. I read Bonk, Gulp, Grunt, and Stiff. A few months ago this same friend said she read Fuzz and it was really good so I requested to loan it from my library. I just finished Fuzz: When Nature Breaks The Law. This book is about human/nature conflicts. In the beginning of the book she goes to an animal attack forensics convention where she is trained to know what humans look like after they have been attacked by a bear, a wolf, or a cougar. She investigates bear proof garbage cans in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. She travels to India to learn about the elephants who break into houses to steal alcoholic beverages. The book haphazardly goes from one animal species to another. Unlike her other books

that I thought were well written and informative, this book seems to be a collection of articles about human/nature conflict that she tossed together and called it a book.

The Last Letter From Your Lover

 Jojo Moyes wrote The Last Letter From Your Lover. The year is 1960 and Jennifer Stirling wakes up in the hospital after being in a coma. She was in a car accident. She had surgery on her arm and a head injury that gave her amnesia. Her husband, Laurence, visits her and she has no idea who he is. This unfamiliar man acts stiffly around her. Some friends visit her in the hospital but she doesn't remember them either. Eventually she goes home and slowly some memories come back. She searches through her belongings feeling something is not quite right. Eventually she finds a love letter written to her that asks her to leave her husband. Now things make more sense but she can't remember who wrote her the letter. The second half of the book takes place in 2003 when someone finds these love letters and decides to investigate and find the people involved. Frankly I thought the story from 1960 was more interesting and better written than the later story but I still enjoyed this book.

Such A Fun Age

 Kiley Reid wrote Such A Fun Age. This fiction novel is about white saviorism. In the book Emira is a babysitter for Alix's daughter, Briar. Alix is a wealthy white woman with two children and she is a social media influencer promoting confidence. Emira is a 25 year old college graduate without a plan and barely making ends meet working as a typist and a babysitter. One evening Alix asks Emira to take Briar to the local expensive grocery store for an hour. While at the store a woman questions why Emira is taking care of a white child and wonders if Emira has kidnapped Briar. A security guard questions Emira and a bystander records the interrogation on his phone. Alix, being an influencer and proponent of women standing up for their rights, wants to "fix" this situation by making it public. Emira wants to forget all about it. Alix doesn't listen to what Emira wants. I think I understand better now how white saviorism affects people of color like Emira.

Thirty Years In Australia

 In 1870, after only a few weeks of marriage, Ada Cambridge left England to live in Australia with her husband who was a rector. Every few years they traveled to a new parish. Ada describes the beautiful sounds of the birds, the wild flowers and the people. She and her husband usually had servants but life in Australia was hard and sometimes dangerous. In her memoir, Thirty Years In Australia, Ada details her impressions of her life as a rector's wife. She thought the church demanded too much of her because she often had to play the organ during the service plus lead the singing and entertain during the week. She writes about the births of her children. She writes about the furniture she had to get rid of before moves and the new furniture she had to get at her new outpost. I thought her writing was  oddly stilted story regarding the people but eloquent when it came to the noisy cockatoos or the lively tree possums. I can tell she liked nature. Ada writes about her writing that she sold to local newspapers. I thought this book gave me a new perspective on Australia.

Sniffed

 

I have spent some time recently with Offspring #2's foxhound who is known for her aggressive sniffing. She loves to sniff. She lives to sniff. When you take off your boots, she will stick her snout deep in the empty boot to sniff the smell your feet left. She will sniff your crotch from the front and the back. Beware of this dog when you yawn because she will sniff your tonsils if she could. She will sniff your hands, your coat, your bag, your pants, your arm pits, your ears, your socks and your car keys. She loves to sniff. As a member of the honorable hound family, it is her job to sniff. But there comes a point in the day where you have reached your limit of being sniffed. If I put up a blocking device like a magazine or a pillow or a box and hold it between myself and her sniffing nose long enough, she will quit. Dealing with this dog reminded me of my old dog, Ruby. She liked to sniff too. She wasn't the best behaved dog but she knew that if I crossed my arms, I had enough. I remember once I was sitting in a chair by the lake with three of my friends. Ruby was off her leash and in a sniffy mood. I crossed my arms. I told my friends to cross their arms. All four of us crossed our arms. Ruby looked at us with crossed arms and got the hint. She laid down in the shade and left us alone. I know dogs need to sniff. I accept the needs of a dog to sniff. Dogs also have to accept that I, as a human, have a limit to the number of times I get sniffed per day.

Crooked

 Cathryn Jakobson Ramin wrote Crooked: Outwitting the Back Pain Industry and Getting On The Road To Recovery. She put six years of research into her book in part because of her own back pain issues. I have some experience with back pain and I agree with her on most things. She says two people with the same MRI results and one will have back pain and the other won't. Epidural steroid injections don't help and can create bone loss. Opioids are addictive. Surgery to fuse vertebrae is not helpful in reducing pain. Chiropractors are often not helpful. Yoga and Pilates can sometimes make your back pain worse. She exposes the dark side of the medical for profit industry. The second section of the book talks about things that can help back pain. Staying active and limiting how much time you sit in chairs is important. Cognitive behavioral therapy paired with spine exercises prescribed for your back are helpful. I think it would be great if someone opened some back pain rehab facilities where people could go to exercise and talk with therapists regarding their back pain. I have never seen such a place but according to this author, that is the best evidence based treatment for chronic back pain.

The Crooked Tree

 In The Crooked Tree, 15 year old Libby is obsessed with a book she got from her father. The book is The Field Guide Of Trees In North America. Her Irish immigrant father tells her that a crooked tree near their home in rural Pennsylvania might be crooked because it was bent that way when it was a sapling by Native Americans as a trail marker. Libby is the worrier in the family and I could just feel her anxiety as she narrated the story. Libby leaps to the worst case scenario but once in awhile the worst case scenario appears. One night at the last day of school before summer vacation, Libby is heading home in the car with her mother, brother, and two sisters. Her mother gets overwhelmed with the squabbling in the back seat and impulsively orders Libby's 12 year old sister to get out of the car and walk home. She gets out of the car and has 5 miles to walk and darkness is coming soon. That rash act changes the course of the family. I think Una Mannion wrote a fantastic coming of age story. 

The Summer Seekers

I am a person who likes road trips and that is why I read The Summer Seekers by Sarah Morgan. Kathleen wants to go on a road trip. She lives alone in Cornwall, England and she craves another adventure. Specifically she wants to travel Route 66 from Chicago to California. Her daughter, Liza, doesn't think this is a good idea because Kathleen is 80. Kathleen tends to live in the moment while Liza is overwhelmed with work, marriage, and her rebellious teenaged daughters. Kathleen advertises for a driver/companion and ends up hiring Martha who is 25 and needs a break from her less than successful life. The moral of the story is it is never to late to change your ways when your ways don't suit your life anymore. 

Fishing!

 Sarah Stonich wrote Fishing! which is a novel about a woman named Rayanne. Rayanne was involved in competitive fishing events for years before deciding to look for something else to do. She ends up as the host on a woman's fishing and talk show. She takes her guests fishing in her restored speedboat and the segments are filmed on a lake in northern Minnesota. The story is also about Rayanne's family. She has a beloved grandmother named Dot who lives in Florida. Her mother and brother live in Minneapolis. Her father who used to star in a fishing show of his own has addiction issues and moves around frequently. Some parts of the story were funny and some were sad. I especially liked reading about the love Rayanne had for her grandmother. I saw one error in this book that bothered me. After an interview on the boat where someone vomited, Rayanne tries to wipe her hands clean in some weeds. Immediately her hands start to burn, turn red, and swell. That is not how poison ivy works. I don't want to jinx myself because I haven't gotten poison ivy for 3 years now but it takes almost an entire day for the symptoms to show up after exposure. 

The Cold Of Winter

 

“What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness.”

— John Steinbeck

All Together Now

 I quickly read All Together Now by Matthew Norman. This story is about a group of 4 high school prep students. They call themselves the prep school rejects because three of them got expelled from high school the day before graduation and the fourth one walked out in solidarity. Robbie is the fourth one and he would have been the valedictorian of the class. Now he is 35, a billionaire, and planning a Memorial Day weekend for his high school friends on Fenwick Island in Delaware. I was just in Delaware in December so it was fun to read about the crab shacks, waves, and sandy beaches. Robbie knows his friends are not keeping in touch like they used to. Wade always wanted to be a writer. He sold one book but his second book is going well. He has always been a huge Beatles fan and this book is about the people mentioned in Beatle songs. He has a chapter about Eleanor Rigby and a chapter about Lucy. Cat is an associate producer of a talk show in Los Angeles but her life isn't going well. Blair is married with twins and she seems happy but she really isn't. Robbie wants to fix all their problems. Robbie spares no expense and they have a wild weekend in Delaware where all the secrets come out. Over the weekend, the four friends from high school learn that it is important to spend time with the people in your life who truly matter.

Women In White Coats

 Olivia Campbell wrote Women In White Coats: How The First Women Doctors Changed The World. This is an historical account about Elizabeth Blackwell, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson and Sophia Jex-Blake. In 1849 Elizabeth Blackwell became the first woman doctor. She met incredible resistance from the male doctors who did not women to join their profession. All three of these women were incredibly persistent. Elizabeth Blackwell and Elizabeth Garrett Anderson were assertive and polite in their efforts. Sophia Jex-Blake was outspoken, challenging and sometimes inflammatory. The early women doctors heard from their female patients how important it was to have a female treat them. Some medical schools refused to admit women. Some professors refused to allow women in their classes. Women were ridiculed and harassed and had mud flung at them. Sometimes they had to pay more for the education and take tests that were more difficult than the tests for the men. Doctor Joseph Lister, the doctor who pioneered antiseptic surgery, was one of the most misogynistic characters I have ever read about. Reading about him was absolutely infuriating.

My Man Jeeves

 I have often thought I would like to have a butler so that is maybe why I chose to read My Man Jeeves by P. G. Wodehouse. This book was published in 1919 so the humor is very dated yet still funny. Some parts were slap stick funny. The nine short stories are about idle rich men helping their friends out of "the soup" (trouble). The trouble is usually about being disinherited for some reason. Five of the nine stories involve the butler Jeeves. The men come up with hare brained solutions that backfire on them. Then they ask Jeeves and he comes up with one that works. Jeeves is an excellent butler with an uncanny ability to know what it needed before anyone else does.

The Island Of The Colorblind

 Oliver Sacks wrote The Island Of The Colorblind. I really enjoyed reading Hallucinations and The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat and Awakenings. This book talks about his fascination with islands and swimming. He visits an island in Micronesia that had a group of people who are colorblind. Their eyes do not have cones which makes it difficult to see, sensitive to the sun, and unable to see colors. At night their vision is superior to those of us who can see color. Sacks brought along another doctor from Norway who is also colorblind. They distributed sun glasses, shades, and magnifying glasses to the colorblind children and adults on the island. On a separate trip he traveled to Guam. On Guam there are a large group of islanders suffering from Lytico-Bodig disease which resembles ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease. With another doctor on the island doing research they hypothesize that the disease comes from eating the seeds of tree ferns called cycads. People on this island did eat the seeds after they soaked them to remove the toxin. Or maybe they got the disease from eating the bats who ate the cycad seeds. He describes each patient they visit and their symptoms. Sacks is clearly fascinated by brain diseases. The theory that cycad seeds caused the disease is never proven but luckily no one has come down with the disease endemic to Guam since 1951. I did not like this book as much as the other ones I have read by him. The travel details seemed unnecessary and distracting. His summarizing of the history of the two islands seemed sketchy and paternalistic. 

Strange Flowers

 Donal Ryan is the author of Strange Flowers. The story is mostly set in a small town called Knockagowny in Ireland. The year is 1973. The author uses run on sentences that describe the landscape and the smells and the plants. Paddy and Kit Gladney are the parents of Moll. Paddy delivers mail and farms for the local land owner. Kit is an accountant for local businesses. At age 20 Moll leaves home without telling anyone. Paddy and Kit don't know what to do. They hear she took a bus to a larger town. So they travel, for the first time, to the big city to look for her. No one has seen her and after a day of searching they go back home. Moll is on their minds every day. One morning, five years later, Paddy is about to embark on his postal route and there stands Moll at the gate to the yard. Moll has changed and she has a few surprises for her family. Why Moll left doesn't become clear until the end of the book. I enjoyed reading this family drama in part because of the interesting characters but also because the author's descriptions of the hills and the bogs was so poetic.

Ask Again, Yes

 Ask Again, Yes by Mary Beth Keane is a best selling novel. People, NPR, Parade and Vogue included it on the best books of the year list. I liked it too. The story about two rookie cops in New York City. Frank Gleeson and Brian Stanhope meet at the police academy and eventually buy houses next door to each other. Their children attend the same school. Frank's daughter, Katie, and Brian's son, Peter are born six months apart and become best friends. When Peter and Katie are 14 a tragedy happens in Peter's house. Peter and his family leave immediately. I loved reading the story. Of all the characters in the book, I loved Peter's Uncle George Stanhope the most. George is flawed. He is an iron worker in New York City. He drinks too much. George loves his family and he demonstrates his love with his behavior.

Everyone Knows Your Mother Is A Witch

 This is one of the strangest books I have ever read. Everyone Knows Your Mother Is A Witch is based on the actual court records of a trial in Germany in 1618. The author, Rivka Gelchen, read the testimony and decided to write a book about it. The woman on trial was Katharina Kepler. Katharina was a widowed grandmother who moved to Leonberg, Germany when she inherited the house of her father. She offered herbal remedies to others. She was proud of her four children. Her eldest son, Johannes Kepler, was a famous German astronomer. One of the women in Leonberg accuses Katharina of giving her an evil brew which made her sick. Katharina could be jailed, tortured and executed for being a witch. At that time, in Germany, a woman had to have a "guardian" because they weren't considered capable of answering for themselves in court. Katharina's neighbor becomes her guardian but later declines to act as her guardian. The author took the fact that her guardian quit and the transcripts from the trial and made up a story of what probably happened. Every trail transcript starts with the same question. "Do you understand that any false testimony you knowingly give will provoke God's great anger in your earthly life and will deliver your soul unto Satan upon your death?" No one knows what Katharina was really like but this author has a vivid imagination of life in Leonberg in 1618. I have read about witch trials in Massachusetts but I had no idea such things happened in Europe too. Despite the horrible trouble Katharina went through, I found this story to be hopeful and even funny in spots. The Katharina in this story would be someone I would like to have as a friend. 

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Apples Never Fall

 I really liked Big Little Lies and Nine Perfect Strangers by Lianne Moriarty so I thought I would enjoy Apples Never Fall too. I enjoyed reading about the Delaney family who ran a tennis school in Sydney, Australia. Their four children all played tennis very well but did not stick with the sport after high school. Now they are all grown up. The parents have sold the tennis school business and are adjusting to retirement. Suddenly the mother, Joy Delaney, goes missing. Throughout the story little clues are laid out in this very wordy book. A refrigerator magnet keeps falling off the fridge. The dog loves to eat paper. When the police investigate the disappearance of Joy, suspicion falls on her husband. The book was going along fine until the last three chapters when a curve ball was thrown into the mix. I really wish the story had ended three chapters sooner than it did. 

The Five Wounds

 I struggled with the first few chapters of The Five Wounds by Kirsten Valdez Quade because some of the words were in Spanish. When I read e books I can just touch the word and get it defined but not all the words were definable. I am glad I kept trying because I really enjoyed this novel. The story takes place in New Mexico and involves  the Padilla family. All the characters are flawed. The mistakes that are made are overwhelming and more serious than any of the mistakes I have made in my life. The book covers one year of life in this family. By the end of the book I was sad to leave the characters because of the introspective and endearing way they thought through the choices they made.