When friends visited recently, and discussion turned to books we were each reading, they recommended I read Neil Gaiman’s American Gods, partly due to the fact that much of the book takes place in Wisconsin. A whole chapter devoted to a darkly mystical trip to The House on the Rock, then on to the little town of Lakeside which is very ‘up North’, and other references to locales like Madison, Chicago and Cairo Illinois, and even the pinnacle of American tourist kitsch, Rock City & Ruby Falls.
The geographer in me was hooked! Problem was I could never snag a copy from the library as it was perpetually ‘checked out’. I decided to read Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch, co-authored by Gaiman and Terry Pratchett and found it delightfully intriguing as any saga about averting Armageddon can possibly be. Then, on to reading Stardust, Mr. Gaiman’s tiny tale where fairies make mischief in their own little Brigadoon. Another ‘yea read’ as far as I am concerned.
Finally got my hands on a library copy of American Gods and sadly, can’t understand what the fuss was about! It plods along at many moments when it should come to life. There are well-crafted descriptions of places and the moods those places inspire, but it left me underwhelmed. The identities and personalities of the gods themselves were muddled as if Mr. Gaiman planned to unveil them in slow motion. The trouble is he never gets around to defining them as characters I cared about. As for the classic American locations, they seemed like gimmicks.
So I won’t waste your time further describing a book I’m surprised I don’t recommend. We’ve all been there. Investing time into a book that keeps you saying, “It will get going. Just another chapter or two.” Sometimes a brick is just a brick. Maybe the TV versions do it justice, which would be a switch to the usual, “The book was so much better than the movie.”
Here’s proof that I needed to start eprlife! FOUR years of books and I haven’t shared the titles, much less a review of any kind. That said, many of you read way more than this, and I’m in awe! What are your reading now? Next time, we’ll be checking in with Sarah B. who will put all but the most avid book-nut to shame!
2016 – 2017
All The Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy. The first in The Border Trilogy and my favorite.
Island of Lost Maps by Miles Harvey. What map geek wouldn’t read this true tale of thievery, obsession and a heist that took place at Northwestern University?
Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder. How Kidder got me caring about the geeks who sweated their brains out for the first PC is a testament to his talent!
The Orchardist by Amanda Coplan. I live on an ‘old orchard’, but don’t want this stuff happening here!
November – December 2018
Map of Salt and Stars by Jennifer Zeynab Joukhadar. Really captivating story of a family. A war. A refugee’s existence.
Stardust by Neil Gaiman. I’d read Good Omens and found I like a good biblical-based fantasy so I picked up this lovely little fairy tale and ‘Poof!’ my wish was granted!
2019
Mary Astor’s Purple Diary: The Great American Sex Scandal of 1936 by Edward Sorel. Kind of a ‘hoot’ and the illustrations are classic, but actually very sad and appropriate as ‘Me Too’ is not at all new!
French Milk, by Lucy Knisley. I like reading about France and Lucy Knisley is a talented of an ‘indie-cartoonist’. Is it really a ‘graphic novel’? Barely. But its FRANCE!
Southpole Station by Ashley Shelby. Being a little obsessed with Antarctica and it’s fragile/hostile environment, I took a chance on a novel about an artist in residence in the scientific, quirky world that is truly down under. It did not disappoint, and left me wanting to read more on the subject.
Reading now…American Gods by Neil Gaiman. Stay tuned THE battle is nigh!
“To those children all over the world who have no access to education, to those teachers who bravely continue teaching, and to anyone who has fought for their basic human rights and education.”
Malala Yousafzai
Pakistani school girl Malala Yousafzai’s story of her refusal to abide by the Taliban’s orders forbidding girls to attend school and her bravery in speaking out for the right to do so. This Young Reader’s Edition* was co-authored with Patricia McCormick and is based on the New York Times Bestseller.
Part One: Before the Taliban describes Malala’s desires to attend the school her father founded, to excel in her studies, socialize with her friends, quarrel with her brothers, and be a good daughter in a loving, modern Pakistani family. Malala was raised in Mingora, the largest city in the famously beautiful Swat Valley. Malala’s father, Ziauddin and mother Toor Pekai valued literacy for their children as a sacred right. Her father founded a school three years before Malala was born and by the time she was eight years old the school had over 800 students and three campuses.
In Part Two: A Shadow over Our Valley the insidious presence of Radio Mullah and the escalation of Taliban rule unfolds into daily life until Malala and the people of her region learn ‘What Terrorism Feels Like‘.
After an earthquake in 2005 devastated the region, conservative religious groups stepped in before the government could respond and many volunteers were from organizations with ties to militant groups. Their leaders began to preach that God would punish the people if they did not change their ways and adopt Sharia, Islamic law. Sharia outlaws music, dancing, smoking, and watching television. These, and other forbidden things are known as ‘haram’. Within two years of the earthquake, Radio Mullah proclaimed that schools for girls were haram.
Part Three: Finding My Voice recounts how her family’s belief that education is a universal human right which propels the Yousafzai household into brighter and brighter political and media spotlights.
Malala started working with the BBC and wrote a diary about life under the Taliban, using a pseudonym, Gul Makai. She began giving interviews and appearing on television and she did not hide her face. “Fazlullah’s men wear masks, because they are criminals. But I have nothing to hide and have done nothing wrong.” She began gaining international notoriety and won humanitarian peace prizes.
The Taliban directly threatened Malala’s father and the school itself. Malala, her father and some of her fellow students began speaking out against the Taliban. Schools were being targeted and bombed regularly. In December 2008, Radio Mullah decreed that “After the fifteenth of January, no girl, whether big or little shall go to school. Otherwise, you know what we can do.”
Part Four: Targeted brings the reader right up to the moment most know from the beginning will come. Death threats began in early 2012. On October 9, 2012 a gunman climbed into the back of fifteen year old Malala’s school bus and shouted, “Who is Malala?” before shooting her point blank along with two classmates.
Part Five: A New Life, Far From Home: After the shooting, Malala ultimately received medical treatment in Birmingham, England. Her classmates both survived the attack as well. On her sixteenth birthday she was invited to address the United Nations and in 2014, at age seventeen was the youngest recipient of the Noble Prize for Peace.
The spirituality in her story comes through time and time again. Malala is a person of faith and she writes of her prayers as conversations with God. She gives praise joyfully and freely, from the heart of a grateful child.
How great God is! He has given us eyes to see the beauty of the world, hands to touch it, a nose to experience all its fragrance, and a heart to appreciate it all. But we don’t realize how miraculous our senses are until we lose one. The return of my hearing was just one miracle. A Talib had fired three shots at point-blank range at three girls in a school bus—and none of us were killed. One person had tried to silence me. And millions spoke out. Those were miracles, too.
Malala Yousafzai
The story is enriched by a Glossary and Time Line of Important Events as well as ‘A Note on the Malala Fund’. and my personal favorite, a map of Swat and insert showing Mingora and Malala’s ancestral home in Shangla.
To all the girls who have faced injustice and been silenced. Together we will be heard.
Malala Yousafzai
*oops! Did not notice I had checked out the Young Readers Edition – the “Regular” edition will undoubtedly go into more political and personal detail.
As we packed up and sold our suburban home to move to a rural 7 acre property, my former boss suggested I might want to read The Egg and I by Betty MacDonald. While I still enjoy such luxuries as indoor plumbing, grocery stores under ten miles away and only a cat as qualifying livestock, author MacDonald effortlessly describes the balancing of a romanticized life of freedom in an open, wild place with the daily realities of endless farm work and isolation. She somehow accomplishes both with quick, detailed accounts of tending to thousands of egg laying birds, canning enormous quantities vegetables, and the dangers at nearby logging operations along with awkwardly hilarious encounters with neighbors and local characters. Like it or not, (and the neighbors apparently did NOT), it was Betty MacDonald who gave the world its first peak at the bumbling Ma & Pa Kettle, based on one of the few neighboring farm families!
MacDonald’s account of her fascinating early life as the daughter of a mining engineer father and an adventure-loving mother in the early years of the 20th century sets the stage as she tells the tales of her first two years of married life with her ambitious husband on a remote chicken ranch on Washington’s Olympic peninsula. Her humor overrides the entire story and was certainly one of the best skills the young bride used in that time and place.
Looking forward to reading more by Ms. MacDonald including, Anyone Can Do Anything, Onions in the Stew, and the children’s series Mrs. Piggle Wiggle.
We just returned from a whirlwind week in God’s country. I have to say that I’m glad we waited until now to see Grand Tetons and Yellowstone…because each of us appreciated it so fully. I feel sorry for atheists of the world….you can’t possibly not believe that God had everything to do with the spectacular beauty that we witnessed (in every direction!!).
Our first two nights were spent in a 2 br condo in West Yellowstone…great location, close to the park. Then next 2 nights we moved south to Jackson Lake Lodge on Jackson Lake in the Grand Teton Natl Park. We toured as much of Yellowstone as we could on the 4th of July. On one stop after seeing Old Faithful geyser, we pulled over to enjoy the scenery of the mountains and the Yellowstone river, and lo and behold this beautiful bald eagle soars over the river right below us…all four of us just looked at each other and had an emotional moment of silence, just being thankful for this amazing country of ours.
All day Sunday and a good part of Monday were spent touring Yellowstone’s magnificent scenes AND animals…including a mother grizzly and her 2 cubs…several bison (2 very close up!)…elk, mule deer, prong horn sheep….Julia and Dylan would go wild every time we saw any wildlife… and we saw plenty! We headed to Grand Tetons to take in Jackson Lake, Jenny Lake (we can’t help but be drawn to lakes after growing up with Wisconsin and Michigan lakes in our lives)…absolutely stunning views.
We thought about taking a raft trip on the Snake River, but decided to do that next year instead. So we took a dinner boat tour on Jackson Lake overlooking the Tetons last Tues. night. The guide told us some great stories about the area and then we boated over to Elk Island, disembarked, walked over to picnic tables set up by a campfire and had a cowboy dinner of grilled steaks and lake trout, corn on the cob, roasted potatoes, cowgirl beans, fresh salad, biscuits and apple cobbler for dessert, yummy!! Then we hiked up a trail on the island to an overlook of sunset on the lake.
If you haven’t had the pleasure of seeing these wonders of our America, do. You will not be disappointed!
Truth be told, it was this book’s title and cover-art images that interested me. Pen and ink illustrations along with satellite and radar images of clouds all hint at the book’s central them of our inter-connected lives, especially through the passage of time.
Let yourself roll with Mitchell’s ability to write six unique stories from disparate places and times. You’ll be asking, how does this relate, right up until the time it all invariably does!
Adam Ewing – a Pacific Ocean adventure circa 1850 which starts and ends this novel;
Robert Frobisher – a roguish, tragically talented pianist who composes his masterpiece sextet ‘Cloud Atlas’ which resurfaces in two of the other stories;
Luisa Rey – a 1970’s era tough-as-nails LA journalist who is in way over her smart little head;
Timothy Cavendish – an unlucky, lucky Brit who steals the show while living through a true nightmare;
Sonmi-451 – one unique human clone in a future populated with clones who serve burgers, clean nuclear waste and don’t get any kind of retirement benefits;
Zachary – a boy’s wild adventure in postapocalyptic Hawaii, which reads more like Huck Finn meets Bladerunner;
Mon ami, Jan was surprised I had not read A Year In Provence after she visited our new/old farmhouse in the Kettle Moraine region of southeast Wisconsin. Chronicling the first year which author Peter Mayle and wife Jennie owned and restored a rustic, two hundred year mas (farmhouse) in Provence, you’ll be treated to a colorful and quietly detailed vision of the new homeowner’s trials and joys. Situated at the foot of the Luberon Mountains between the villages of Menerbes and Bonnieux and within the boundaries of a 247,000 acre national park, the property offered the Mayles a bold lifestyle change from their native England. It was both sanctuary and a work in progress on six acres of vineyards.
From crowded, clogged roads in summer, with hilarious descriptions of French driving technique, to depictions of wine-enfused games of boules, to a detailed account of a Grande Course de Chevres (Great Goat Race) through the streets of Bonnieux.
So apropos to my view of the typical NYE scene, the author begins his tale,
“The year began with lunch. We have always found that New Year’s Eve, with its eleventh-hour excesses and doomed resolutions, is a dismal occasion for all the forced jollity and midnight toasts and kisses. And so, when we heard that over in the vilage of Lacoste, a few miles away, the proprietor of Le Simiane was offering a six course lunch with pink champagne to his amiable clientele, it seemed like a much more cheerful way to start the next twelve months.”
Food & Restaurants
Lacoste – Le Simiane, New Year’s Eve lunch
Lambesc in a converted mill with an 80 year old female chef
Auberge de la Loube – an ancient Mairie, Buoux
Deux Garcons, Aix
Old Station Cafe, Bonnieux
Bistro du Paradou, Massane
Markets in Cavaillon, Apt, Isle-sur-la-Sorgue and Coustellet
Food guide: Gault-Millau, L’expert gourmand
Vineyards/Caves
Gigondas and Beaumes-de-Venise
Chateauneuf-du-Pape
Vacqueyras
People
Faustin, the neighbor/farmer
Antoine Massot, the old mountain man
Monsieur Menicucci, the plumber
Ramon, the plasterer
Bernard,The pisciniste (pool man)
The Year’s highlights
January: The Mistral – winter winds, Frozen water pipes;
February: The kitchen is gutted, the cold continues;
March: Planting new vines, Truffle hunting;
April: Cherry blossoms and the house guests arrive;
May: Cycling in the countryside;
June: More house guests;
July: a trip to Saint-Tropez;
August: Grande Course de Chevres;
September: Tourists leave, Hunting Season begins, Grape harvest;
October: Les Champignons
November: Chevaliers’ dinner in Burgundy, a visit to an olive oil mill -Cooperative Oleicole de la Vallee des Baux, Maussane
December: The wiles of the wife, the ways of the worker and the job gets done!
And so the Mayle’s year closes and I fret that I may be approaching the same feelings as I look around our place.
“There comes a time in the restoration of an old house when the desire to see it finished threatens all of those noble aesthetic intentions to see it finished properly.”
