Where The Rivers Merge

 Mary Alice Munroe is the author of the historical fiction novel entitled Where The Rivers Merge. The author lives in South Carolina and is a conservationist. Her facts about the birds, the plants, and the animals make her conservation work very apparent. The Mayfair estate grows rice and horses. The mother and father have three children. The middle child is a girl named Eliza and she is a tomboy. She would rather be outside riding horses than do any of the womanly work inside. She is a disappointment to her mother but a big help to her father. She pushes back against societal norms. The book starts out in 1908 and ends in 1998 when Eliza is 80 years old. I really enjoyed this book.

American Melody

After lunch I walked through Levee Park on my way to the public library. I saw the American Melody parked and passengers were getting on and off. This ship took off from St. Louis, Missouri and was on it's way to Saint Paul. Just as I walked to the end of the ship I saw an elderly couple. The man used a walker. Just then the American Cruise bus went by and KERPLOW!!!! blew a tire right next to me. The noise was so loud. I could see a 3 inch gash in the sidewall of the tire. I jumped. The man with the walker starting tipping over. I thought he was going to fall but he didn't. My adrenaline was through the roof. Yikes. The ship was still there on my way back from the library a few hours later but it eventually pulled away and headed up river again.

Bird Club

 Tonight I went to my first meeting of the Winona bird club. Our speaker was a woman who is an expert on Prairie Island. She told us where to find which birds. She has seen 67 species of warblers. She told us about the nature trail. Now I want to go down there and walk that trail. There is a lake called Hunter Lake.  There, in the spring, the lake thaws before the river and you can find a large variety of green winged teal, canvas backs, and ruddy ducks. She told us which birds nest on the island. The city of Winona has partnered with the Minnesota Land Trust and will develop a plan to restore the island and remove the invasive species. I look forward to the next meeting. This is a fun group.

The Book Of Lost Sould

 In this delightful historical fiction story we switch the story between 1875 and 1988. Lisa Wingate is the author of The Book of Lost Souls. In 1875 little Hannie watched from the plantation in Mississippi as her mother and siblings are sold away. Lavinia Gossett is the daughter of the plantation owner. Juneau Jane is the plantation owner's daughter with a Creole woman in New Orleans. Together the three girls take off looking for the plantation owner in Texas. While recovering from illness they hide out in a church for a week. On the walls of the church are newspaper articles of former slaves looking for their relatives. Juneau Jane knows how to read and write so she starts collecting information from other people missing relatives and writes the book of lost soles. Juneau Jane teaches Hannie how to read and write. On the other end of the timeline first year teacher Benny Silva comes to Livingston, Alabama. She needs to work off her student loans. The school is shockingly empty of books and teaching materials. She finds a huge library of books in an empty farmhouse behind the one she is renting. She gets permission from the owner to bring the books to school. With her students they begin to do research on the people who lived in this area. Eventually they come to find out that this is where Hannie, Lavinia, and Juneau Jane once lived.

The Female Persuasion

Meg Wolitzer is the author of The Female Persuasion. This novel follows the life of Greer and Cody. Greer met Cody when she was 8 years old. He moved to her neighborhood and now they are in the same grade in school. Both Greer and Cody are the smartest kids in their class. After graduation they were meant to go to Yale together. Greer's parents are not the best. They don't seem to care about her. They both smoke weed in the basement. Greer's father said he would fill out the financial questions on her application for scholarships but he didn't. Now Greer is angry because she has to go to Ryland college. Cody will go to Princeton. In college a friend named Zee convinces Greer to hear Faith Frank, a famous feminist, speak. Greer is so impressed by Faith that they follow her into the bathroom. Faith gives Greer her card and asks her to keep in touch. After graduating from Ryland Greer gets a job with Faith's company. Cody ends up working in the Philippines. He gets a call one day that rocks his world. His mother was backing out the car and accidentally runs over his little brother, Alby, who was lying in the driveway studying his turtle. Cody goes home. After the funeral his father returns to his native Portugal, never to return. Cody's mother is rightfully depressed. Cody stays home to care for her. This delightful book is about wanting to be seen.  

Kayaking

 

I had a hard time getting my kayak out of storage but now it is out.

The lovely lotus blossoms are abundant on Lake Winona. The only other places I have seen them are at Como Park and on the Mississippi in Cottage Grove.

Today was a fine day to be out on the water. I saw Canadian geese, bald eagles, tree swallows, a great blue heron, a muskrat, two turtles (one was a rather large softshell turtle), many fish. As I kayaked along I could see people walking or biking on the path.

The boat sticker says 2023 so I had better get that updated pronto.

The Burgess Boys

I am a big fan of the writing by Elizabeth Strout. I was very happy to find a book by her at the library that I hadn't read before. This one is called The Burgess Boys. The Burgess boys, James and Bob, along with their sister Susan, grew up in Shadow Falls Maine. Now the brothers live in New York City and work as lawyers. Their sister lives in their family home in Maine. One day she calls her brothers and asks them to come home because her son, Zach, is in a world of trouble. He impulsively took a pig head and rolled it in the door of a building. He didn't know that this building was a mosque. He didn't know his behavior was culturally widely inappropriate. Some people in Shadow Falls are disappointed that so many Somali people are moving to Shadow Falls. This wonderful story is about family bonds and immigration. 

First Ladies

Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray are the co-authors of First Ladies. The story revolves around the unlikely friendship of a black activist by the name of Mary McCloud Bethune and Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Eleanor and her mother-in-law invited Mary McCloud Bethune to a luncheon at their home in New York City. She is the only black person in the room. Eleanor was unaware that other white women at this luncheon would refuse to dine with a black woman. Bethune knew how it was going to go down but she went anyway thinking racism is their problem, not hers. When Franklin gets elected to be the President, Eleanor and Bethune start working on civil rights together. Eventually Bethune gets hired to work at the White House. Eventually the two women start sharing family secrets and are there to support each other through thick and thin. This is a very good book. 

Isaac's Song

 Isaac's Song is an historical fiction coming of age novel set in Missouri and Chicago. Isaac's father does not approve of his inclinations. His father wants him to enjoy manly things like sports and woodworking. Isaac isn't like that. Isaac's mother has a drinking problem that gets so bad his father moves out. Isaac and his father did get along when they took a road trip to his father's boyhood farm. He learned much information about his father on that trip. After graduating from high school Isaac moves to Chicago for university. There he finds himself. He still holds huge amounts of anger for his father. A therapist suggests he go back to his boyhood home in Missouri. When he does he finds ten or so letters from his father who wrote them as he was dying. After processing the letters the anger abates. His therapist recommends he start writing about his memories and this proves to be a useful method. This was a very good book to read about gender norms and racism.

I Shouldn't Even Be Doing This

 Bob Newhart is the author of I shouldn't Even Be Doing This And Other Things That Strike Me As Funny. In it he talks about his parents and his siblings. He has three sisters. He grew up outside of Chicago. He attended all Catholic schools. He got a degree in business management. He started to go to law school but dropped out before he finished. He got drafted into the Army but managed to stay out of Korea.  He lived with his parents to save money. His father owned a plumbing business but Bob didn't want to get into that. He started doing stand up comedy on the west coast. Eventually he made recordings of his funny stories. He has a dry sense of humor and speaks with a stammer. He played a psychologist on The Bob Newhart show. Suzanne Pleshette played his wife. That ran for six years. Years later he played an innkeeper in Vermont. There he had a different wife. In the best ending in television history they turned the set around to reveal Bob in bed with Suzanne. She says he can't have Japanese food before bed ever again.

Homeseeking

 Karissa Chen is the author of Homeseeking, an historical fiction novel that starts off in China. Suchi is 7 when she first hears a boy playing the violin. Next he is in her class at school. For the first day in school students are supposed to bring a lunch from home, The violin playing boy, Haiwan, probably didn't know that. Suchi gives him half of her lunch, As they grow up together and Suchi spends time in Haiwan's home, they fall in love. Haiwan is trying to get into a musical academy and he spends hours a day practicing on his violin. Just before graduating from high school, he joins the military so that his older brother won't have to go and leave his wife and daughter. Suchi is heartbroken. Both Suchi and Haiwan marry other people. He leaves his violin with Suchi and a note that asks for her forgiveness. Sixty years later Haiwan is walking around Los Angeles and he hears his name called out. There stands Suchi looking at him. They agree to meet for breakfast and that is where she gives him his violin back. This is a story about love and familial sacrifice and the power of longing over distance and time.

Tidal Treasures

Kay Correl is the author of Tidal Treasures. Jenna, an investigative journalist in San Francisco made a mistake that resulted in a man being imprisoned for two years for a crime he did not do. Jenna decides to quit her job and move to an island off of South Carolina. She buys a house sight unseen and starts to fix it up. Her sister disagrees with her decision to move so far away from her. Jenna hires a contractor named Nash to help with electrical and plumbing repairs and to paint the outside of the house. Under a floorboard Jenna finds a metal box full of love letters from the 1920's. She tries to figure out who wrote them. She realizes some secrets are better off left unsolved. 

Collecting Prairie Coreopsis Seeds

 

Today I drove north and west to the Weaver Dunes Nature Conservancy site. With the help of 14 other people we walked through the prairie (and the poison ivy) collecting seeds. We even found a ground cherry which I thought was pretty cool. One guy found two snake skins that had been shed quite a long time ago. We had nice cool weather for our work. One family brought two kids under the age of five and I liked that. One kid found part of a deer antler. This is a remnant prairie. When the DNR does butterfly surveys they come here because of all the butterfly varieties that are found here. This is a really special place.

The Art Of Saying Goodbye

Ellyn Bache is the author of The Art Of Saying Goodbye. The story revolves around five suburban woman, Iona, Paisley, Julianne, Ginger, and Andrea. Paisley is the lift of the party. She invites her neighbors and their husbands and their children to her house for food and drinks and games. Iona feels out of place because she is thirty years older than the rest of them. Julianne is a nurse with a psychic ability to diagnose patients by feel. When Paisley comes in for a pre-operative examination Julianne touches Paisley's belly and knows she has cancer. As the other women cope with Paisley's upcoming death from metastasized pancreatic cancer they come to realize the importance of female friendships and not to take life for granted. When they learn of Paisley's diagnosis they each tie a huge white ribbon on a tree in their yards. At the funeral these white ribbons decorate the top of Paisley's casket.  

Big Chief

 Jon Hickey, a Native American author wrote his debut novel called Big Chief. A young law school graduate named Mitch Caddo. He is an aspiring political fixer returning to the land of his Anishinaabe ancestors. He is helping a childhood friend, Mack Beck, the tribal chief of the Passage Rouge nation in northern Wisconsin. He is also the chief of the  Golden Eagle Casino and hotel. He is up for reelection and an activist named Gloria Hawkins may well beat him. On the eve of the election violence breaks out. Mitch's mentor and father figure dies in a plane crash. The very interesting story is about power, corruption, family ties and a search for belonging.

Tales Of A Female Nomad

Rita Goldman Gelden is the author of Tales Of A Female Nomad. At age 48, on the verge of divorce, and both of her kids in college, Rita sold her belongings and started to travel. She did not accept alimony. She makes some money writing children's books. First she went to Mexico and lived there for a few years. She has lived in Indonesia, Borneo, Bali, New Zealand, Canada, Thailand and the Galapagos Islands. Sometimes her kids would visit her. Sometimes friends would come to visit. She learned to speak Spanish and Indonesian. She trusts people and she makes friends. Very interesting book.

How To Sleep At Night

Elizabeth Harris is the author of this comedic book, How To Sleep At Night. Ethan and Gabe are a loving couple. They hired a woman to bear their daughter, Chloe. Ethan's and Gabe's political leanings have drifted apart. Ethan asks Gabe if he will support him in a run for Congress as a Republican. Gabe doesn't want this to happen but since he loves his husband he can say no. In a nearby town  a suburban housewife named Nicole feels like an accessory to her husband's life. She loves her two children but if bored with her life. She gets in contact with a lover she was with in college named Kate (who is Ethan's sister). Nicole and Kate have an affair. This novel is about romance, sibling love, and how people change over time.

 

The Lost Pilor

I read another historical fiction book. This one is called The Lost Pilot and it was written by Benjamin Johncock. Jim Harrison is a talented pilot with the U.S. Airforce. He flies over the Mojave desert. He and his wife, Grace, yearn for a child. A fertility specialist tells her she is unfertile. To their surprise she does become pregnant. When it comes time to deliver the baby their truck won't start because it is too cold. They travel to the hospital on a motorcycle. They name the baby girl Florence but he often calls her duck.  When she was a baby she often made sounds like a duck. Tragedy strikes. Jim copes by throwing himself into his work. They move to Houston so he can train as an astronaut. This puts a strain on their marriage. The decisions they have made together are both hopeful and hurtful. This is a memorable novel about hurt and being brave in the face of that pain. 

Ape House

 Sara Gruen is the author of Ape House. Isabel Duncan is in charge of seven Bonobo apes. These Bonobos know how to sign and understand American sign language.  Isabel is a scientist at the Great Ape Language Lab. There are animal rights activists protesting that the Bonobos are not being well taken care of but that is not the case. A journalist, John Thigpen, working for a newspaper in Pennsylvania, speaks with Isabel and gets to see the Bonobos. Before coming he brought them 3 backpacks of gifts to ensure the Bonobos will want to see them. Soon after he leaves to file his story the door opens and an explosion happens seriously injuring Isabel and freeing the Bonobos. Once out of the hospital she is bound and determined to get her Bonobos back in her care. John Thigpen helps her discover where they are and how to get them back. The Bonobos are thrilled to see Isabel again. Fascinating story.

The Paris Express

 The Paris Express is a historical fiction novel by Emma Donoghue. Based on a true story, the book details who was on a train heading to Paris. There were people from Russia, Pennsylvania, Algiers, Ireland and Cambodia. A secretary tries to convince her boss about the possibility of moving pictures. A medical student suspects a girl on the train may be dying. The engineer is best friends with his buddy who shovels in the coals. A young anarchist has a terrible plan. As the train gets closer to Montparnasse station, the brakes fail. The train is going too fast for this part of town and there is no way to stop it. The book does a great job exploring the glamour, the politics, chaos and speed of 1895.

We Do Not Part

Years ago I read a book written by Han Kang called The Vegetarian. Today I read We Do Not Part. This is a historical fiction book set in South Korea. Two women met at work and often traveled together for work. Kyuhnga gets a call from her former work partner, Inseon. Inseon lost some fingers in a wood working accident. She is in the hospital. She wants Inseon to travel to Jeje Island to feed and water her bird. The birds need food and water today or it will die. Inseon travels first by plane and then by bus to get to Inseon's house. A winter storm is slowing her down. The bus puts chains on the tires and Kyuhnga makes it to Inseon's town. But now it is dark and 3 feet of snow have fallen and Kyuhnga isn't sure she is going to make it. She does make it. When Inseon returns to her home both friends investigate the mass killings that went on in Korea. This is a beautiful story about the importance of remembering and of friendship. 

I'll Be Right Here

Amy Bloom is the author of I'll Be Right Here. This is a historical fiction novel that starts in Paris and ends up in New York City. Samir is the older brother to his sister Gazala. They are orphans. They get separated. After World War II Gazala immigrates to New York City where she becomes friends with two sisters, Alma and Anne.  Samir surprisingly joins Gazala. These four friends make a family together. They annoy each other and cheer each other on.  As the decades go by they have more things to worry about and to celebrate. This made for an interesting story.

Tracks

 Today I read Tracks, a memoir of a trip by Robyn Davidson. In her early 20's she moves to Alice Springs to learn how to train and be around camels. Her goal is to take a trip with camels from Alice Springs to the ocean on the south west side of Australia near Perth. She doesn't have much money. She gets a job at a restaurant who will allow her to sleep in the back overnight. She finds a camel trainer. He is so incredibly rude to her that she quits him after a year. Another camel trainer learned that she managed to stick it out for a year. He is so impressed by that he finishes her training and gets her two camels. Those camels die. A photographer friend of hers suggests she write to National Geographic to sponsor her trip. She does get sponsored by the magazine and takes off with four camels and a dog. For nine months she travels mostly alone. Her photographer friend meets her 4 times. For some time she traveled with an elderly Aboriginal man which is nice because she doesn't get lost as much. Australia has feral camels roaming. This spells trouble during the mating season. She ends up having to shoot several male camels to death. When they reach the ocean the camels are freaking out at the sight of all this water. The camels run and dance and swim in the sea. She takes them to a camel sanctuary to live out the rest of their lives and travels away. Interesting story.

Boat Tour

This afternoon I went on the Winona boat tour. We saw 6 bald eagles, 3 deer running, and a mink swimming across the river. We saw a gaggle of geese and a waddling of Mallards.

Our tour lasted 90 minutes.

We headed up river towards the town of Fountain City. Here we are approaching lock and dam 5A.

This used to be parked next to the U of M in Minneapolis. Now someone in Fountain City bought it and intends to rent it out for weddings or other gatherings.

 

The Life Cycle Of The Common Octopus

 Emma Knight, an author from Toronto, wrote the book The Life Cycle Of The Common Octopus. This story is about a pair of high school girlfriends who decide to go to Uni in Scotland. Penelope and Alice are the friends.  Penelope's father went to Edenborough for Uni also. She knows her parents are keeping something from her so she goes to Scotland to find out what the secret is. This story is about campus life, travel, sexual awakenings, and the value of friendship. The story has nothing to do with octopus.

Beautiful Nights

Nina George is the author of Beautiful Nights. I read her other book The Little Paris Bookshop. In this story Claire is fed up with her husband because of his many affairs. Claire is an esteemed professor of human behavior. As she, her husband, and her son, Nico, prepare to leave for a holiday on the Brittany coast, Nico asks a question. Can he bring his girlfriend along? Nico wants to marry this girl. This girl isn't sure she wants to be with him.  When vacation time is up, Nico and Clair's husband leave while Claire and the girl stay on. This book was okay but I didn't like it as much as The Little Paris Bookshop. 

The Larger Queen Of Minnesota

Last summer I heard J. Ryan Stradal speak at the Winona public library. Today I read The Larger Queen Of Minnesota. This is the second book I have read by him. The first book was Saturday Night At The Lakeside Supper Club. The author grew up in Hastings and is a big fan of supper clubs. This was a good book. This was a good book about two sisters who grew up on a farm. When the parents die, the proceeds of the farm go to one sister only. That sister grew up determined to make good beer. She went to Macalester to study chemistry. She and her husband did make good beer. The other sister got married, had two children, and worked at a nursing home baking pies. Her pies were so delicious people from outside the nursing home started coming in to eat pie. Eventually the couple moved to a suburb of Minneapolis. Her husband died. When her daughter and son-in-law died in a car accident she took in her granddaughter. Her granddaughter ends up in the beer making business too.

Orange World

 Orange World is a collection of short stories written by Karen Russel who also wrote Swamplandia. In one story a young man, living with his mother, has a job collecting peat. He finds a girl's body in the bog and takes her home and falls in love. In another story a young pregnant woman makes a deal with the devil to protect her baby. In exchange, at 4:30 a.m. she has to go outside, lie on the sidewalk, and breastfeed the devil who lies in the gutter. This book has some crazy stories that I could never dream up.

Doggone Bones

Today I went on a ten mile bike ride. In the middle of the ride I sat on a bench alongside Lake Winona and read Doggone Bones by Carolyn Haines. This is a mystery novel set in Mississippi. A local pet activist's dog went missing and she hires Sarah to find her. Soon another dog goes missing. Then Sarah's dog and her best friend's dog go missing. Are all these missing dogs taken by the same person?  This was an entertaining book to read on a nice August afternoon.

 

 

Red White And Royal Blue

 I joined a book club at the local library. This book club focuses on banned books. The book we discussed today was Red White And Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston. Casey is a young author who lives in New York City. The book starts in Washington, D.C. The United States has a female Latino President. Alex is her son. Alex has a sister and these two hang out with the daughter of the Vice President. Alex and his family travel to London for a royal wedding. Alex and Prince Harry tumble into the wedding cake smashing it to the floor. To make up for this faux pas Alex and Harry schedule photo shoots together to make it seem like they like each other. Will Alex's work on the campaign help his mother get reelected? There were 3 people besides me in the discussion. One is a heterosexual man and he wouldn't like this book. Another was a woman who was ill today. Most people liked the book. I gave it a 7 with a 10 being the most liked score.

Not In My Book

 Katie Holt is the author of Not In My Book, a novel written about two warring writing students. Aiden, the male lead is in a writing conference with Rosie, the female lead. Aiden is a fan of literary fiction. Rosie is a fan of romance books. Aiden makes sarcastic remarks about Rosie's writing. She makes biting comments about his work. Their war on words is disrupting the class. The teacher threatens to expel them. Neither Rosie nor Aiden want that. For a last chance the teacher tells them to cowrite a story together. This is one of those relationships where initial hatred of each other is love in disguise. Their teacher and the entire classroom realized Rosie was in love with Aiden and Aiden in love with Rosie.

 

 

My Life As A Villainess

 Laura Lippman is the author of My Life As A Villainess. This is a book of 16 essays about her childhood, her education, and the influences on her career as a journalist. She writes about marriage and motherhood, aging, sexism, accomplishments and regrets. She is a very talented writer who normally writes crime novels.

 

 

The Californians

 The Californians, a book written by Brian Castle, spans 100 years in California. One hundred years earlier Klaus Aaronsohn, a Jewish German immigrant, reinvented himself as a silent film director by the name of Klaus Stiegl. He becomes a famous movie director. His granddaughter, Di Stiegl grows up in Palm Springs. She becomes a successful artist in New York City. In 2014 Tobey, a college dropout currently working as a waiter, looses all his belongings in a Northern California wildfire. He steals three of Di Stiegl's paintings from his father to fund a new beginning for himself. This was an interesting story to read.

 

 

The Last Camellia

 The Last Camellia is a book written by Sarah Jio.  The story revolves around two women living in a manor house in England. The first woman is Flora. Flora lives with her parents and helps them run a bakery. Financially the bakery isn't doing well. Her father insists on giving bread away for free is people are impoverished. A man offers her a large sum of money if she will go to England and pose as a nanny at a manor house. This is before World War Two. She takes a boat to England and gets the job as a nanny to four young children who just lost their mother. She is being paid to find a rare camellia. There is no way to find it unless it blooms. The man who hired her is putting pressure on her to find it. Eventually she learns that her father is ill and she goes back to New York City. Fifty years later Addison comes to the manor which is now owned by her parents-in-law. She tries to figure out the history of the people in this house. She comes across Flora's artwork. But she is in danger from a boy she lived with in her childhood. He is a sociopath and he is bound and determined to hurt her. Eventually she finds a locket. Inside that locket is a seed for that rare camellia. The seed is still viable so now there is another camellia tree growing. This was a good mystery and historical fiction story.

 

 

The Fault In Our Stars

 John Green is the author of The Fault In Our Stars. This story revolves around a 16 year old girl named Hazel Grace. Hazel Grace is forced to attend a support for cancer patients. Hazel suffered from thyroid cancer and now she has lung issues. She has to have supplemental oxygen day and night. At the support group she has a friend named Issac who had cancer in his eye. Issac bring another friend, Augustus, who had osteosarcoma. He had a leg amputated. Hazel and Augustus fall in love. They give each other books. Augustus takes Hazel and her mother on his "Make A Wish" trip to Amsterdam so she can meet her favorite author. This was a very nice story to read.

 

 

The Paradise Problem

 Christina Lauren is the author of The Paradise Problem. This story is told by two characters, Anna Green and Liam (William) Weston. While attending college at UCLA, Anna agrees to a fake marriage with Liam so they can get into subsidized family housing. Once they graduate Anna expected they would divorce. Years later Liam comes back into her life asking for a favor. Liam is from a wealthy family. The only way he can get his grandfather's inheritance is by staying married for 5 years. Liam's sister is getting married in an expensive resort near Hong Kong. Liam asks Anna if she will go to the wedding with him and pretend to be his loving wife. Anna is living paycheck to paycheck because she has to pay for her father's chemotherapy. She doesn't know how the rich live. Liam will pay her a boatload of money to do this. Will she pull it off?

 

 

Circling The Sun

I have been to Kenya so naturally I like reading books about Kenya. Paula McLain is the author of Circling The Sun. The story is about Beryl. Beryl was born in England but her family moved to Kenya when she was a baby. At age 4 her mother left with her older brother to go back to England. Beryl grew up with her father who eventually remarried. Her father raised race horses and Beryl is good with horses too. Her father encouraged her to marry at age 16 which she did but the marriage didn't work out. Beryl becomes the country's first licensed horse trainer. Later in life she became the first female pilot. Beryl is quite the woman and this is quite the book.

 

 

Powerless

 Harry Turtledove is the author of the dystopian novel called Powerless. Charlie Simpkins lives in the San Fernando valley of Los Angeles, part of the west coast's People's Democratic Republic. In this country people must obey orders. One day Charlie gets a notice to hang up in the window of his produce store. He doesn't want to hang up the propaganda notice in the window. So he doesn't. At first things go badly for him. He looses his job. His wife thinks he should have hung up the notice. His son gets kicked off his sports team. His daughter looses the chance to be in a girls group. Charlie gets another job that takes a longer bus ride and pays less. Eventually the family is told they must move to another town 30 miles away. Suddenly things start going better for Charlie and his family all because he stood up for himself and didn't hang that notice.

 

 

Zeal

Morgan Jerkins is the author of Zeal, a novel about star crossed lovers.  In Natchez, Mississippi, Harrison returns a free man after fighting in the Civil War. He is looking for Tirzah, the love of his life. He goes to the plantation where they both were slaves but she is not there. He finds the wallet he gave her years ago. He writes to the Freedman's Bureau in search of information about her. He eventually marries a different woman. Tirzah, newly freed, is working at a school in Louisiana. She sees the add Harrison wrote but it is too difficult for her to get to Natchez. She eventually marries a man in Louisiana. Tirzah and her family move north to fight oppression. The lives of Harrison and Tirzah and their descendants continues until an engagement party in Harlem in 2019. This was an excellent story about the power of love.  

 

 

 

 

Remember

Lisa Genova is the author of Remember: The Science of Memory and Forgetting. I have loved other books by this author including Still Alice, Left Neglected, Love Anthony, Inside the O'Brians, and Every Note Played. This book is different from those. In those other books the story revolved around a patient with a brain disease. This book has no patient. The author talks about how memories are formed. Everyone has memory failures and that is no indication of dementia. She gives ideas on how to get a memory to stick such as keep repeating it or attach it to an emotion. Forgetting is just as important as remembering.

 

 

But Soft, What Light Through Yonder Window Breaks? It Is The East And Juliet Is The Sun

Yesterday I attended a matinee performance of Romeo And Juliet at the Winona State University Defresne Theater. Winona has a great river Shakespeare festival every year so I decided to go. When I was in the 9th grade our class put on a performance of Romeo and Juliet. I was cast in the role of Juliet's nurse. Looking at this play today I see I got a pretty good role. I think the teacher assigned the parts. My friend Renee got the role of Juliet which was okay with her until she learned that Gary F. got the role of Romeo. Renee and Gary did not like each other. The kiss between them was extremely awkward. I felt bad for her. I think that was the last time I saw a Shakespeare play. The language takes some getting used to. For 20 minutes before the performance the understudies acted out skits in the lobby so we could train our ears to get used to the language of Shakespeare. The picture above shows the stage before the performance started. We were told not to take pictures during the performance. I never realized four people die in this story Mercutsio gets stabbed by Tybalt Capulet. Then Tybalt gets stabbed by Romeo. Then Romeo dies by ingesting poison because he thinks Juliet is dead. But she wasn't dead and when she finds Romeo dead she stabs herself. Obviously there is a lot of bad blood between the Montagues and the Capulets but the older generation is more chill about the feud than the younger generation.

 

Lie For A Million

 Janet Daily is the author of Lie For A Million. This novel is set in horse country. Lila Culhane has just become a widow after her husband, Frank, was killed in the horse barn. She is trying to manage the farm on her own with the help of a cook/housekeeper and Roper, a cowhand. A FBI agent is there trying to solve the murder. Frank's first wife wants to take the farm away from Lila. Frank's son and his wife want to take the farm from Lila. Now Frank's young lover tells Lila that she is pregnant with Frank's child. Lila's life is a mess.

 

Trempealeau National Wildlife Refuge

Yesterday I spent the day in Wisconsin at Trempealeau National Wildlife Refuge.
 

Bay State Milling

Last night I walked to the Winona County Historical Building for a talk about Bay State Milling which is located a few blocks from my house. The plant manager talked about the history of Bay State Milling which started in Massachusetts. The company decided to expand to Winona, MN because there is an abundance of wheat grown around here. Now they have locations throughout the United States and one in Canada. Their goal was to sell the perfect product. They sell bleached and unbleached flour, high protein flour and six other kinds. They sell mixes such as for pizza dough or biscuit dough. They do not sell any retail. They do sell to local businesses such as Bloedow's Bakery here in Winona. They sell both regular and organic flour. They have 215 employees. Some times of the year they work 7 days a week. Their products are moved by train and trucks. The speaker did a good job answering all the questions.

 

Whitewater State Park

Yesterday I drove 25 minutes north and west to visit Whitewater State Park again. Many years have passed since my last visit. I walked the trails. I saw a guy fly fishing for trout. I saw an indigo bunting and a rose colored grosbeak. I visited all 5 camper cabins. I walked past many  camp sites. They have wild parsnip everywhere. This rogue vegetable plant has spread all over. If you touch it with bare skin and then are exposed to sunlight you can get a painful rash. I usually think of vegetables as innocent but not this one.