Tara Westover grew up in a wacko survivalist Mormon home in Idaho. Her dad believed the end times were coming and they buried fuel, guns, ammo, and canned goods all over their mountain junkyard home. He wouldn’t let them go to school, to a doctor or hospital. Tara didn’t even know when she was born; she had no birth certificate. He also almost caused the deaths of several of his children by his dangerous practices while making them work in his scrap yard/junk yard.
“A True Story of Transforming Love”
He adopted a fearful, distrusting, wretched, miserable sheep dog (like us before God) and turned her into a happy, beloved, obedient, helpful, indispensable sheep dog for his ranch in Vancouver, Canada. He applied the lessons he learned from training her (Lass) to us in our relationship with God. He adopts us and takes us from being fearful, angry, unhappy, rebellious people and sets us free to become the happy, beloved, beautiful, loving, and purpose-filled friends He designed us to be.
Interesting account of the hurricane that struck and almost completely destroyed Galveston, Texas, on September 8, 1900. Told on the basis that the Weather Bureau made grave errors due to pride and ignorance, so Galveston had no warning of its impending doom. Isaac Cline was the Galveston Weather Station’s chief. Over 6000 people died, including Isaac’s wife.
Unique, thought-provoking, sometimes hilarious story about tiny Owen Meany and his best friend, Johnny Wheelwright, and their growing up in Gravesend, New Hampshire, in the 1950’s and 1960’s. The story is told from Johnny’s perspective and starts with telling how, during Sunday school when their teacher left the room for a smoke, they loved to lift up Owen and pass him around in the air. At first you think they are going to be mean and bully him, but they LOVED the little guy; they just couldn’t resist lifting him up and passing him around. And, Owen didn’t play the victim – not that he enjoyed being lifted up and passed around, but he didn’t cry or whine or tell on them, even when the teacher returned and snapped, “Owen Meany, you get back to your seat! You get down from there!” (As if “Owen Meany had put himself up in the air”!)
Took me too long to finish, but it was interesting. Ranger Anna Pigeon is on temporary assignment on Dry Tortugas National Park, where Fort Jefferson was built during the Civil War to house war prisoners. She intersperses Anna’s mystery – finding out why she’s seeing ghosts and why her assistant was almost killed when a “go-fast” boat he was approaching exploded – with old letters from her great-great Aunt Raffia, who lived at Fort Jefferson at the end of the Civil War at the same time it was housing famous prisoners accused of aiding in the assassination of President Lincoln.
Love her descriptions of the islands and the water. Here is part of the first paragraph of the book:
Until she ran out of oxygen, Anna was willing to believe she was taking part in a PBS special. The water was so clear sunlight shone through as if the sea were but mountain air. Cloud shadows, stealthy and faintly magical at four fathoms, moved lazily across patches of sand that showed startlingly white against the dark, ragged coral. Fishes colored so brightly it seemed it must be a trick of the eye or the tail end of an altered state flitted, nibbled, explored and slept. Without moving, Anna could see a school of silver fish, tiny anchovies, synchronized, moving like polished chain mail in a glittering curtain. Four Blue Tangs, so blue her eyes ached with the joy of them, nosed along the edge of a screamingly purple sea fan bigger than a coffee table…
Short book (88 pages) describing everything you need to know about tennis. Under “Values:”
Tennis can truly be called the sport of a lifetime, since youngsters can begin at about six years of age and their grandparents may still be playing even past age sixty!
This was written in 1967 when rackets were still wooden and were 27″ long and 9″ wide.
Short book (32 pages) for children packed with tips on writing. I particularly liked the tips on how to get more details into your writing:
- Use names.
- Think about exact colors, shapes, and sizes.
- Use comparisons.
- Notice all the details, even those that might not seem important at first.
- Use all five senses – sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch.
Beautifully written autobiography about Elspeth’s childhood years in Kenya in the early 1900’s before World War I. Her Mom and Dad, whom she calls Tilly and Robin, are determined to make it as coffee farmers in Kenya, despite no one having done so before and them not having the skills or the knowledge. But, they did have the determination and the heart, and they would have made it had the War not forced them to leave their beloved farm. Beautiful descriptions of the animals, the people (Kukuyu and Masai) and the land. Robin bought the farm sight unseen and when they finally got there after train, wagon, mule, walking, it was a desert.
…Robin pulled up and said, ‘Here we are.’ We did not seem to be anywhere. Everything was, just the same, biscuit-brown, quivering with heat and grasshoppers. There was not even an erythrina tree.
Easy to read, fun little how-to book on simplifying your life. Some parts are outdated (“Drop call waiting,” “Stop the Junk Mail,” and “Get rid of your car phone”) and there is no mention of social media, e-mail, internet, etc., because they weren’t around yet in 1994. But our lives have only become more complicated because of technology, and much of the advice can still be applied in 2018. The chapters are only one to two pages long and cover how to simplify “Your Household,” “Your Lifestyle,” “Your Finances,” “Your Job,” “Your Health,” “Your Personal Life,” “Special Issues for Women,” and “Hard-Core Simplicity.” If you only had time to read the chapter titles in each section, you’d come away with ideas to simplify your life. Here are some examples:
I love Inspector Morse mysteries. I miss them when I’ve finished because Inspector Morse and Sergeant Lewis are so likable, so human, and I just want to be with them. They take me to England and back to a time before much technology, except for color TVs. Morse consults maps, phone books, a rolodex (a new invention in this book), and when he wants to know what time it is, he turns on the radio:
Morse, newly woken and surprisingly refreshed, switched over to Radio Three; and thence to Radio Oxford. But none of the channels seemed anxious to inform him of the time of day, and he turned back to Radio Four…
When the radio stations didn’t tell him the time soon enough, he “got out of bed, pulled on his clothes, walked downstairs and dialled the speaking clock.”
“Idle hands are the devil’s workshop.” This novel greatly illustrates what can happen when a man gets bored. It’s an amazing tale about Wang Lung (pronounced Wong Lung), a poor farmer in China, and what happens when he goes from poverty to wealth.
This is the memoir by the author of The Yearling. She tells about her 13 years living in Florida on 72 acres in the northeastern part of the state near the St. John’s River between Jacksonville and St. Augustine.
Drawings by Robert Lawson
Ferdinand the Bull just wanted to sit under his favorite cork tree, “smelling the flowers just quietly.” I loved this book as a child and they made a movie of it, which is pretty good, and made me want to read the book again. Learned about cork trees and makes me want to visit Spain, where cork trees grow (Andalusia and a town called Ronda).
Jean Perdu owns a book barge in Paris. He is 20 years into grieving his lost love. She gave him a letter but he never opened it. Finally he does and she left him because she was dying of cancer. He unhooks his barge and travels south with Max Jordan, a young author with writer’s block, and 2 cats. They meet Salvatore Cuneo, also looking for a lost love, and who eventually meets the love of his life – an author – and Jean gives them the boat and travels on by car to Sanary de Ser or something like that where he swims, gets tanned and in shape and discovers he loves Catherine and they live happily ever after. Book Club book – no one liked it except Mom and 2 others. Mom fell in love with lavender after reading this book and makes lavender snickerdoodle cookies, drinks lavender tea, and wants to see fields of lavender in bloom.by A. B. Guthrie, Jr. 1949, won Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1950
Lije Evans, his wife, Becky, and son, Brownie, decide to go to Oregon with a wagon train. 1840’s, I think. Lije convinces Dick Summers to be the pilot. They leave Independence, MO with about 12 other families in wagons. At first, a cruel, greedy, arrogant, impatient man named Tadlock is the captain. One of his first orders is to kill all the dogs. Evans refuses to let that happen to his beloved dog, Rock. Only one dog is actually killed.
Eventually, Tadlock is removed as captain and Evans is voted in as captain. Tadlock wanted to continue-rush-on – while his hired man is dying of camp fever. So the men voted Evans as captain – big, strong, good man – didn’t think he had it in him to lead a wagon train to Oregon – but his wife (big, strong Becky) knew it all along, and with the piloting of Dick Summers – wise old mountain man (not really that old) who knew the way and kept them out of dangers, they make it!
Brownie, 17 yr old son of Lije and Becky, falls in love with Mercy McBee, beautiful quiet 16 yr old daughter of the McBee’s – family of poor white uneducated.
Mack, a man whose wife, Amanda, is frigid, drives him crazy so one night when Mercy is dancing at camp, he takes her away and has his way with her. Mercy falls in love with Mack but keeps silent about it. Mack learns how to deal with Amanda and when Mercy is pregnant and tells him, he can’t help her. He says isn’t there someone you could marry?
Brownie loves her and marries her – she told him what happened and he marries her anyway. He tells no one but Dick Summers.
Dick and Brownie develop a strong bond. While hunting buffalo together, Brownie saves Dick – thrown from a horse and about to get charged by a buffalo – Brownie shoots the buffalo dead in the nick of time. Dick saves Brownie’s life when he decides to hang back so he could carve his name and Mercy’s name on Chimney Rock and gets attacked by Indians. Dick rides up and convinces the Indians not to scalp him.
Charles and Judie Fairman – little son Tod always sick with fever – going to Oregon where there will be no more fever but little Tod, who just wants to play, runs off chasing a grasshopper, gets bit by a rattlesnake and dies.
Buffalo stampede on a stormy night. Evans in the midst of it – shooting to steer them away from camp – worried Brownie is crushed, but he’s okay. Camp is spared.
Crossing the Snake River – all the wagons make it except the Byrd’s – Evans saves Mrs. Byrd from drowning, but she is 6 months pregnant and loses the baby that night.
Tadlock and a few others decide to go to California instead of Oregon. When they hear how dangerous it will be getting to Oregon, the last 800 miles.
Brother Weatherby, old Methodist preacher, who comes along because God has called him to Oregon. Devout, judgmental, but performs admirably throughout – funerals, sermons, prayers – Mercy and Brownie’s wedding.
They finally make it to the Columbia River. Dick Summers disappears in the night despite Evans trying to convince him to stay on to Willamette.
Last 2 paragraphs: “He let himself look around and saw the Byrds’ and Fairmans’ boats lapping close behind and, on his own, Brownie idle with his sweep and Becky with the home gleam in her eye and Mercy sitting by her. Mercy who, Rebecca said, was going to have a child. Sweet Mercy who would bring a baby to the house. Blood of his blood, Evans thought. Blood of his blood once removed.
“He winked at his women and spoke loud about the tremble in his throat. “Becky,” he said, “Hurray for Oregon!”
Another book by A. B. Guthrie, Jr. is “These Thousand Hills” about the world of cattle ranchers in the 1880s. Published in 1956.
Alfred Bertram Guthrie, Jr. lived most of his life in Montana. He wrote the screenplay for Shane, died in 1991.
by John Steinbeck, 1945
Finished in 2 days. Exquisite, painful story about Kino, Juana, and little baby boy, Coyotito. Coyotito gets stung by a scorpion – that Kino, his father, couldn’t catch in time. Jauna, Coyotito’s mother, sucks out the poison but decides they must see the doctor. The rich doctor won’t see them because they have no money. They go pearl hunting and Kino finds a huge, perfect pearl. The doctor and the whole town find out. The doctor comes to visit, gives the baby a pill of white powder and gelatin. One hour later, baby Coyotito is vomiting. Doctor comes back, pretends to cure him. Asks for a fee. Kino tries to sell the great Pearl at the pearl buyers the next day. They are all working for the same man, unbeknownst to the town. They all say, this Pearl is too big, no one wants it! Kino decides to leave for the big city. That night, someone tries to steal the pearl, Kino kills him. Juana tries to throw the pearl in the ocean. Kino beats her. Kino, Juana, and little Coyotito escape for the city. They are tracked through the desert and into the mountains. Hiding in a cave, Kino kills the trackers at night but not before one errant shot finds his little son and kills him.
Kino and Juana trudge back to their little town on the Gulf with their little bundle – throw the Pearl into the sea.
Last 2 paragraphs: “And the pearl settled into the lovely green water and dropped toward the bottom.The waving branches of the algae called to it and beckoned to it. The lights on its surface were green and lovely. It settled down to the sand bottom among the fern-like plants. Above, the surface of the water was a green mirror. And the pearl lay on the floor of the sea. A crab scampering over the bottom raised a little cloud of sand, and when it settled, the pearl was gone.
“And the music of the pearl drifted to a whisper and disappeared.”
A story of how great wealth can ruin, utterly, your life.
by Stacy Schiff, 2010
I read 2 chapters – gave up – too speculative – Ptolemy and on and on – couldn’t finish – Thanks to Wayne – No time for bad books.
by Charles Dickens, 1861
Pip as a young boy meets an escaped convict in a church cemetery. The convict scares him into bringing him food and a file to cut off his leg iron. Pip does this. Pip lives with a much older sister and her blacksmith husband, a saint of a man, Joe Gargery. The sister is a mean, abusive woman, to both Joe and Pip.
Pip gets hired by a rich, broken-hearted woman, Miss Havisham. He goes to her house and entertains her and her adopted daughter, Estella. Pip falls in love with beautiful Estella as a young lad the first day he meets her.
Pip grows and becomes an apprentice to Joe in the forge. He is dissatisfied with the commonness of his life and relatives, when he comes into his Great Expectations by anonymously donated money. He moves to London, meets good friend Herbert, the genius lawyer Mr. Jaggers and his clerk, Wemmick.
After years of the good life, Pip meets his true benefactor, the convict he helped so long ago, who had been exiled from England and earned his fortune all for Pip – to make him a gentleman.
Pip recoils from him at first but gradually, with Herbert’s help, learns all about him – he is actually Estella’s father! The convict’s wife had killed a woman in a jealous rage but Jaggers was able to get her off – the woman becomes Jaggers’ housekeeper and Jaggers takes Estella, then 3 yrs old, and gives her to Miss Havisham to raise. Miss Havisham was jilted by an evil man, Compeyson, who led a life of crime and coaxed the convict (Magwitch) to join him. When he gets caught, the jury pins it all on Magwitch. Magwitch knows nothing about his daughter still being alive – Pip figures it all out and reveals it to Magwitch (Mr. Provis) as he lay dying in the prison hospital. Pip tried to get Magwitch back out of England before he got caught but Compeyson finds him and turns him in – exciting river escape attempt ending with Magwitch grabbing Compeyson out of his boat and them both going under. Magwitch comes up alive but wounded and then arrested. Penalty of death since he was never to return to England. Compeyson drowns.
Estella was raised by Miss Havisham to be cold-hearted and cruel. Pip always thought his benefactor was Miss Havisham but when he finds out it isn’t, he confronts Miss Havisham and exposes her cruelty – to raise this beautiful daughter and toy with Pip all these years – thinking there was hope for him to marry Estella. Miss Havisham shows deep remorse when her cruelty is exposed. But Estella goes and marries a real turd – Drummle – against Pip’s warnings.
Years later, Pip returns to Miss Havisham’s (now deceased-mansion torn down) to visit the old place and finds Estella there! By that time, she had endured an abusive marriage to Drummle, who died while abusing a horse. She is now a widow and realizes the good heart in Pip.
Last paragraph: “I took her hand in mine, and we went out of the ruined place; and, as the morning mists had risen long ago when I first left the forge, so, the evening mists were rising now, and in all the broad expanse of tranquil light they showed to me, I saw no shadow of another parting from her.”
What a rich, beautiful tale! The characters so deep and picturesque. The growing up of Pip from young, sweet boy, to young gentleman who gradually learns that goodness of heart is never something to be ashamed of (he was often ashamed of Joe as he grew up after meeting Estella and coming into his expectations).
The clerk, Wemmick, was one of my favorite characters. He and Pip become special friends – Wemmick lives in a little cottage he turns into a tiny castle with a moat and everything. Wemmick takes care of his aged parent (Aged P.) with love, patience, and tenderness.
I haven’t mentioned Biddy – She was a young girl who ends up befriending Pip as a boy, teaching him, then coming to help Joe and Pip’s sister – who by that time was completely destroyed mentally by a murder attempt that left her alive but barely. Biddy nurses Pip’s sister until she dies. Biddy loves Pip but knows he loves Estella.
After many, many years, Pip decides to return to the forge and ask Biddy to marry him – he arrives on the day of Biddy’s wedding to Joe! Pip is so very happy for them – he truly loves them both. That is when he goes to the garden and meets Estella there.
The relationships between Joe and Pip as a young boy, Pip and Herbert (dear friend), Wemmick and the Aged P, Biddy and Pip’s sister, Pip and Provis (Magwitch), Joe and Pip (Joe comes to London to nurse Pip back to health) are full of self-sacrificing love, care, devotion. Sometimes humor.
Miss Havisham is a very interesting character. She is jilted on her wedding day (by Compeyson) and she never recovers. She stops all the clocks in the mansion, she leaves her wedding dress on, she never goes outside again, she leaves the dining room with wedding cake on the table. When Pip is there the cake is full of cobwebs, spiders, mice. When Pip finally confronts her years later when he finds out she is not his benefactor and that he was merely used to be a toy to Estella’s cruelty, she shows deep remorse. Pip decides to walk through the garden and then leave forever (the garden and all the grounds are decayed and wretched). He decides to check on her one last time and she has gotten too near the fire and bursts into flames. Pip saves her life by wrapping her in his cloak. His arm and hands get burned in the process. I have not written this book report in very good order, but it is such a rich, detailed, engrossing tale! I loved it!
Thank you, God, for Charles Dickens and Mark Twain, my 2 favorite authors!
Translated by Husain Haddawy
“This translation is of the complete text of the Mahdi edition, the definitive Arabic edition of a 14th century Syrian manuscript, which is the oldest surviving version of the tales and considered to be the most authentic.”
Shahrazad marries the King Shahrayar who typically puts his wives to death after one night since his 1st wife cheated on him. She asks if she can tell him a story. He says yes, and so each night she tells him a story or a part of a story and he never puts her to death because he’s excited to hear the rest of the story the next night.
My favorite was “the Third Dervish’s Tale.” He was a prince who gets shipwrecked and ends up in a palace with 40 beautiful women. He lives in paradise with them for 1 year. When they have to leave for 40 days they tell him there are 100 rooms in the palace and he can explore 99 of them but cannot go in the 100th or they will lose him. After 39 days he has explored 99 rooms – all beautiful and delightful and Satan tempts him to open the door plated with gold – he does and that is his undoing – he rides a black horse who flies away with him and dumps him on a roof and kicks him and tears out his eye.
This is a common sentence throughout the stories: “There is no power and no strength save in God, the Almighty, the Magnificent.”
I also liked the last story, “Jullanar of the Sea.” About a ‘mermaid’ who becomes the wife of the king of Persia – a good and benevolent king, and bears him a son who is as beautiful and wonderful as she is. He (Badr) grows up and they try to find a wife for him. He eventually marries the Princess Jauhara and, “Then King Badr and his wife and mother and relatives continued to enjoy life until they were overtaken by the breaker of ties and destroyer of delights. And this is the completion and the end of their story.”
“Translator’s Postscript”
“Tradition has it that in the course of time Shahrazad bore Shahrayer three children, and that, having learned to trust and love her, he spared her life and kept her as his queen.”
Most of the stories were full of beautiful palaces with rooms, gardens, birds, fountains, beautiful princes and princesses, slave girls, music and singing, and fantastic events–supernatural events, some demons, magic.
by Mark Twain, 1882
Fabulous book! Set in 1500’s in England. Two little boys; one the prince, the other a pauper (Tom Canty) change places. The real prince learns what it feels like to be poor and downcast and to see his laws in action (such unfairness!). The pauper becomes rich and catered to. In the end, the real prince is accepted back to the throne and rules with compassion. Miles Hendon is an adult which befriends the true prince when he is on the streets. He protects him, takes his lashes for him, and saves him from the rabble. He calls him his little lunatic. He doesn’t believe he is really a prince. The interplay is so precious! Absolutely loved this book!
Last lines: “‘What dost thou know of suffering and oppression? I and my people know, but not thou.'”
‘”The reign of Edward VI was a singularly merciful one. Now that we are taking leave of him let us try to keep this in our minds, to his credit.”‘